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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A 

Pocket System of Theology 

FOR 

Sabbath-School Teachers 

AND 

CHURCH-MEMBERS GENERALLY. 



BY THE 

Rev. JOHN REID, 

i 

Author of "Voices of the Soul Answered in God," etc. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
By the Rev. JOHN HALL, D. D. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 13o4 Chestnut Street. 



"ft* 



COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



The 1 

OF CONH 



WASHINGTON 



Whstcott & Thomson, 
Qtereotypers and Electrolypers, Philada. 



INTRODUCTION. 



There have been made in our time many and 
comparatively successful attempts to render into pop- 
ular form and language the processes and results of 
those sciences which are commonly studied with care 
only by specialists. The effect has been good on the 
whole. The range of thought has been widened. 
The modest have been encouraged to prosecute study 
in departments which they would otherwise have 
deemed beyond their reach. Now, if men have thus 
gained on common lines of thought and investiga- 
tion, surely yet more may be hoped from the like 
course in reference to theology — "the most excellent 
of the sciences." 

The facilities — in the existing knowledge of 
religious truth and interest in it — are greater to the 
popular teacher of theology than to a like laborer 
in the fields of physical, or even of intellectual, 
science ; and for this reason : that through God's 
goodness to the land there is wide acquaintance 



11 INTRODUCTION. 

with the text-book, and there is a certain amount 
of exact knowledge in a multitude of minds. He 
who has, for example, committed to memory and 
retained there a good Catechism, has a certain prep- 
aration for further exact statement, and is prepared 
to appreciate truths in their relation to one another 
and to general thought and life. 

Over against this must, indeed, be set the fact 
that the natural man is not in sympathy with 
spiritual things, and that human pride is all too 
ready to place revelation on the same basis with 
the results of human speculation. But on this 
very account it is all the more important to give 
definite information regarding the grounds of 
religious belief, and to show the elements that 
distinguish it from common conviction. 

It is sometimes suggested in the press, and even 
in the pulpit, that the age does not want theology — 
that, in fact, it is an incumbrance to the Church. 
Humanity, culture, ethics (so called, as if theology 
did not carry with it the true and highest ethics !) 
and other vague terms are commended as describ- 
ing the wants of the time. Of this two things 
may be said. 

In the first place, whatever God revealed to man 
in ages past for his spiritual good must still be for 



INTRODUCTION. Ill 

that good unless some important element has under- 
gone a radical change. But what radical change 
has taken place in the nature of God ? or of man ? 
or in their relations? or in the nature of moral 
evil ? or of moral good ? or of their influences 
on mankind ? 

And in the second place, it is generally conceded 
that in order to practical efficiency in the various 
departments of human effort exact intelligence 
must be kept within practical reach of the laborers. 
Discontinue the teaching of spelling and grammar, 
and the influence will soon appear in human speech 
and writing. Drop the study of mathematics, chem- 
istry and allied sciences, and the influence will soon 
be felt in the related arts. So abandonment of 
exact theological teaching will soon be followed by 
loose thinking ; but " as a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he." Let sin, for example, be an 
unhappy incident, a slight misfortune, a piece of 
" bad form " simply, in a man's mind, and he will 
not be as watchful against it or as sorry for it as 
will one who has learned to count it transgression 
of God's law, of which the wages is death. 

The author of this little book, deeply impressed 
with these convictions, aims at bringing theological 
inquiry to the level of ordinary intelligence. His 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

previous efforts in the press entitle him, by their 
recognized character and influence, to speak again. 
He enjoys the confidence of his brethren. A ven- 
erable and trusted teacher of theology has read the 
work and given it approval, and from the exami- 
nation I have been able to give to portions of it I 
do not hesitate to commend the work as fitted to 
guard against loose and inaccurate statement ; to 
counteract the bad impressions made by indiscrim- 
inate sentences uttered in the interests of supposed 
" liberal " thought and specially broad charity ; to 
show that the "dogmas" which are denounced are 
often not understood by their critics, and that the 
arbitrary decrees of Church authority in the Middle 
Ages are one thing, the doctrines given to men by 
inspiration of God are quite another. 

John Hall. 
New York, 1st February, 1884. 



PREFACE. 



The Puritans of the seventeenth century were 
theologians, and it was their theology which strength- 
ened them and made them the great men of their 
age. When Holland, Scotland and New England 
lost their theology, they lost their power. The re- 
ligion that despises doctrines is a religion that will 
be despised. A departure from orthodoxy, instead 
of being the sign of spiritual progress, is the sign 
of spiritual declension. It is morally impossible 
for saintly men like Leighton and Edwards to 
trample upon fundamental truth. The heart more 
generally leads to error than the head. The new 
is not always true, and the true is not always 
new. 

There is needed just now a profound theological 
consciousness — that is, a sense of God, a feeling of 
awe and reverence, a high conception of the divine 
rectitude, in order to give tone to our views of the 
divine mercy — then a devotional spirit that will 
make the secular habit and the merely intellectual 
to be an impossibility. The end of all truth and 



4 PREFACE. 

life is worship — the rendering of glory to God. 
It was remarked of Dr. Bellamy that he made 
God to appear great. Modern preaching, teach- 
ing and training at home, will be more effectual 
if they possess that characteristic. Even the state 
papers of former times were noted for their theistic 
tone. (See those of Cromwell as instances.) The 
letters of Christian people also had a divine ele- 
ment running through them which we do not see 
to the same extent at present. 

It has been said that every science has an art that 
is connected with it, as physiology has the art of 
medicine. So the science of theology runs into 
the art of religion, and gives practical effect to it. 
Religion is lifeless without theology, and theology 
is lifeless without religion. He who dislikes doc- 
trine dislikes piety. Religion either ends in a 
dreamy sentimentalism or in a dry morality when 
it is divorced from the truth. The love of holi- 
ness and the love of doctrine must walk hand in 
hand together. Truth is light, and piety is the 
warmth which it brings. The acts of repentance 
and faith cannot be exercised unless first we have 
the doctrines of repentance and faith; just as we 
cannot have Christianity without Christ. 

This small treatise on theology is not a skeleton. 
It is rather a body of divinity in miniature, having 
a full complement of bones and flesh and blood. 
Theological systems are large because the history 
of the doctrines is mixed up with them. Each 



PREFACE. 5 

topic by itself can be expressed in a few words. 
Often, the more one says the more confused the 
reader's mind becomes. The average intellect can 
grasp a thought best w T hen it is presented in a few 
distinct sentences. Besides, the mass of Christians 
would not read through an intricate and volumi- 
nous system. The author, therefore, has been care- 
ful not to make his book long or difficult. One 
can carry it about with him and read a chapter 
when convenient, until the whole is finished. Hav- 
ing his mind awakened by the perusal, it is sup- 
posed that the reader will afterward seek for a more 
elaborate work. 

Persons will differ in their opinion as to what 
should be left out and what retained in a book 
like the present. That it is more difficult to write 
a small volume on such a great subject than to 
write one that is larger, every thoughtful mind 
will admit. 

Although the Bible is studied just now more 
than usual, it is a question whether the doctrines 
of Scripture are carefully pondered. Perhaps this 
manual may help Sabbath-school teachers and Chris- 
tians generally in that direction. That a work of 
this kind is needed is the opinion of many learned 
men. Theology is so noble a subject that it would 
seem that every pious layman would be eager to 
look into it. Prof. Henry B. Smith makes the 
remark, " that he who would spend his strength for 
that which is really influential, and always abiding 



6 PREFACE. 

in its influence, can best spend it in the service of 
Christian theology" 

Theology is not theory or speculation. It is 
founded on facts, truths, principles and persons, 
and these the most important in the whole realm 
of existence. Theology is pre-eminently the divine 
philosophy. It begins with God, comes forth to 
man, and show T s how God and man may be united. 
Theology gives high meaning to time and eternity, 
to the course of nature and providence, to the fall 
of souls and their glorious redemption. The great 
problems of philosophy are equally the problems 
of theology, but with this difference : that theology 
is grounded upon a divine revelation, while phil- 
osophy works its way by principles of reason. The 
evangelical theology has such certitude, and meets 
man's needs so completely, that it must win the 
day. 



CONTENTS. 

PART I. 
DOCTRINE CONCERNING GOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Proofs of the Existence of God 13 



CHAPTER II. 
Attributes of God , 21 

CHAPTER III. 
Triune God 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
Plan of God 35 

CHAPTER V. 

God's Work of Creation 41 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

PAGE 

Providence of God 49 



PAKT II. 
DOCTRINE CONCERNING MAN. 

CHAPTER I. 
Origin and Antiquity of Man 58 

CHAPTER II. 
Innocence and Fall of Man 67 

CHAPTER III. 
Sinfulness of Man 75 

CHAPTER IV. 
Free Agency of Man 83 

CHAPTER V. 
Immortality of Man 90 

CHAPTER VI. 
Man's Need of a Divine Helper 96 



CONTENTS. 9 

PART III. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON 
AND WORK OF THE MEDIATOR. 



CHAPTEK I. 

PAGE 

The Divine-Human Mediator 103 



CHAPTEK II. 
The Atonement of the Mediator 113 

CHAPTER III. 

Christ as Mediator before Redemption — Mediator 
during Redemption — Mediator after Redemp- 
tion 123 



PART IV. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON 
AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

CHAPTER I. 
The Holy Spirit 132 

CHAPTER II. 
Election — the Persons to whom the Spirit applies 
the Divine Remedy 140 

CHAPTER III. 
Regeneration — Divine Life introduced into the 
Soul by the Spirit 149 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK IV. 

PAGE 

Saving Faith — the Soul led to Eest on Christ by 
the Spirit 155 

CHAPTEK V. 
kepentance — the turning from sln to holiness 

by the Aid of the Spirit , 163 

CHAPTER VI. 
Prayer — Holy Desire awakened by the Spirit... 168 

CHAPTER VII. 
Sanctification — Progression in Holiness by the 
Spirit's Power till Perfection is reached.... 176 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Perseverance of the Saints — the Spirit never 

Leaves the Children of God 184 



PAKT V. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE LAST 
THINGS. 

CHAPTER I. 
State of Souls between Death and the Resurrec- 
tion «... 191 

CHAPTER II. 
The Millennium 198 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER III. 

PAGE 

The Second Coming of Christ 206 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Resurrection of the Dead 212 

CHAPTER V. 
The Final Judgment 218 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Future Punishment of the Wicked 224 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Future Rewards of the Righteous 234 



Pocket System of Theology. 



PART I. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING GOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

THE soul has a native conviction that there is 
a God. This conviction is a necessity of the 
mind. All nations have an idea of a divinity. 
Even at the time when there is a belief in hun- 
dreds of gods, there is yet a belief in One who is 
above them all. Hence we read of " The First 
God," " The Great God," " The Supreme Gover- 
nor and Lord of all," "The Self-subsisting Deity." * 
It does not follow from this that man has an intui- 
tion of God. It is more proper to say that he has 
a conviction of a supernatural Being, this convic- 
tion arising from a combination of powers, tenden- 
cies and needs in human nature, and from the 
world without as connected with the world within. 

* Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. i. p. 365. 
2 13 



1 4 THEOLOGY. 

To present proofs of the existence of God is an 
effort of reason ; and, whether the proofs are suf- 
ficient or insufficient, God is still the same. Our logic 
neither makes nor unmakes him. To fair minds, 
however, a solid argument is a solid pleasure. 

I. The Universe Points to a Creator. 

There is a material universe ; this universe is 
limited; being limited, it is not self-sufficient; it 
must therefore have come into existence. The 
Cause which brought it into existence must be 
outside of it; that Cause must have almighty 
power, as nothing less than almighty power could 
produce such an effect; that Cause must be mind, 
and that mind must be God. 

If the matter is in a state of motion, the motion 
came from a Mover, and the Mover is God. If 
the matter acts according to specific laws, the laws 
point to a Lawgiver. 

Is it said that there is no cause in nature, only 
antecedent and consequent ? Be it so. The Cause 
is above nature, and that gives us the antecedent 
and consequent. There is assuredly an effect, and 
we know that every effect must have a cause. We 
are compelled, therefore, to believe in an extra- 
mundane God, the Creator of all things. 

If we go back to the elements of matter, they 
can do nothing. The elements may have certain 
properties, but they never act unless they are brought 
in conjunction with other elements which match 



PKOOFS OF GOD ? S EXISTENCE. 15 

with them. The elements have do power to leap 
toward each other. They must remain stationary 
for ever unless there is a mind to use them for 
certain purposes. It is folly, therefore, to talk of 
the properties of matter as having power to form 
the universe. " Xothing which science has as yet 
established contravenes, invalidates, or hardly ever 
touches, the doctrine of creation — none of its evi- 
dence ; the arguments for creation are just as strong 
and good as ever, and no established scientific prin- 
ciple or fact is in their way." * 

Geology makes it certain that there was a long 
period in this world when nothing was in existence 
save inorganic matter; and yet when all was life- 
less life came. From what did it come? Lifeless 
matter could not produce it. Life could come only 
from life. God must be the Giver of it. The first 
plant, animal and man were miracles of creation. 
All the kingdoms of life turn to God and bow to 
him. Science knows nothing of the origin of mat- 
ter or of energy or of life. Admit the divine ex- 
istence, and all is plain. 

It is said, however, that God cannot be known ; 
and yet the persons who say this speak of him as 
"The Infinite," "The Ultimate Cause," "The 
Creative Power." Certainly, if the Unknowable 
is infinite, is a cause, is creative, he is known to the 
extent of these characteristics. Since " we are 
obliged to regard every phenomenon as a manifes- 
* Prof. H. B. Smith, Lectures on Apologetics, p. 186. 



1 6 THEOLOGY. 

tation of some Power by which we are acted upon," * 
we can know something of the Power from its mani- 
festation, just as we can know something of man 
from his works. The fact that I cannot compre- 
hend the Infinite does not keep me from knowing 
many things about the Infinite. If there is no 
knowledge except the exhaustive, I am hopelessly 
shut out from it. Not even through eternity shall 
I be able to know God as he is, and yet all through 
eternity I shall know him more and more. God is 
concealed, yet revealed — unknown, yet known. If 
the human mind can make itself known, while the 
divine mind cannot, in that case the human excels 
the divine. 

II. Design Points to a Designer. 

The idea is self-evident that means arranged 
with reference to an end show intelligence. If 
blind forces have built the universe, why do they 
not build steamships and cathedrals ? If they can 
do the greater they can do the less. The form, 
order and beauty that are manifest on every hand 
point to a Being who shapes and arranges, and who 
is himself the perfection of beauty. The sap that 
ascends the tree and the blood that flows through 
the system are manifestations of force, yet the force 
acts according to a plan. " Order universally proves 
mind. The works of nature discover order. The 
works of nature prove mind." f 
* Spencer, First Principles, p. 99. f Tulloch's Theism, p. 14. 



PROOFS OF GOD'S FXISTE^^CE. 17 

The eye was made to see, the ear to hear, and the 
hand to grasp some object. When I behold men 
building bridges or composing treatises on atoms 
and necessity, I know they have a design in what 
they are doing. I must believe, then, that the in- 
tricate mechanism of the universe has a purpose 
which proclaims its Maker. "The invisible things 
of him from the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead." Rom. 
i. 20. 

See how light in passing through a prism 
branches off in different colors according to a fixed 
plan, giving us violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, 
orange and red. Then how striking is the law 
that u every substance which emits at a given tem- 
perature certain kinds of light must possess the 
power at that same temperature of absorbing the 
same kinds of light " ! * Design is seen in the ele- 
ments as they mingle together in certain propor- 
tions ; seen in the crystals which form the moun- 
tain of granite ; seen in the ether which covers the 
immensity of space. All creatures upon earth are 
the expressions of certain types, giving us inti- 
mations of the skill of God. The two kinds of 
nerves, one conveying impressions to the brain, 
and the other motions from it, are notable in- 
stances of wisdom. The ants, with their indus- 
try, order, forethought and executive ability, seem 

* Proctor, The Sun Ruhr of the Planetary System, p. 119. 



18 THEOLOGY. 

to be condensed minds, exhibiting more wisdom 
than the largest creatures. The fertilization of 
plants through the agency of insects, they carrying 
pollen from flower to flower, is a most wonderful 
adaptation of means to ends. The entire creation 
with its unity, giving us a uni-verse, points to the 
one God. 

III. The Soul Points to the Absolute 
Spirit. 

The material system cannot furnish the com- 
plete idea of God, because the material system is 
not a person. In man and nature we have the 
full proof. 

I have an intellect : my Creator must be intel- 
lectual. That which has no understanding could 
not form a creature with understanding. I might 
as well say that the wind could originate life as 
to say that reasonless power could originate reason. 
Then I have feelings which excite and restrain, 
which love and hate : hence the Being that made 
me must feel. I can plan and purpose : God must 
have a will. " The personality of God is the 
ground of his relation with the personality of 
man. Without personality in God he would, so 
far as the knowledge of man goes, be lower than 
man, and without personality in man there would 
be no ground of relation to God." * To say that 
the Infinite cannot be a person is mere assertion. 
* Mulford, The Republic of God, p. 26. 



PROOFS OF GOD^ EXISTENCE. 19 

In the most exalted sense he is the Person. Then 
there is that which perplexes every materialist — 
consciousness : God must be a conscious Spirit. 
We have also the faculty of conscience. This 
does not merely show that the Divine Being has 
a moral nature. Guilt makes the soul to fear him 
as One who tries, condemns and punishes, thus 
giving us a divine Ruler and a divine government. 
There is no God but God, and conscience is his 
prophet. 

The human spirit proclaims infinity and eterni- 
ty : they must have an infinite and eternal ground ; 
that infinite and eternal ground is God. When 
I look at great mountains and the starry heavens, 
I think of the Infinite. That men weary after they 
have obtained all earthly good is a cry for the In- 
finite. The finite does not match and measure the 
soul. Restlessness and despair are the midnight 
cry of man for God. There is a yearning for joys 
that never fail, showing that the mind was made 
for him. I am weak, helpless, dependent: I 
need the Independent. I have an idea of ulti- 
mate authority : I want the certain, the final — 
God. 

If we turn from our nature to the man Christ 
Jesus, what a finished volume of evidence we find 
for God! How came this Sinless Soul to be here 
when the entire race to which he belongs is struck 
with evil ? He is of us, and yet he is not of us. 
He is out of the range of our development. He 



20 THEOLOGY. 

had no prejudice/ made no mistake, never fell short 
of his ideal, was the Man of men : how do we ac- 
count for his appearance? Most assuredly, he is 
the image of God, proclaiming the divine exist- 
ence with all the sacredness and certainty of eternal 
truth. He could say without the least misgiving, 
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father/' John 
xiv. 9. 

The skeptic who has shaped the strongest argu- 
ment to prove that there is no God has shaped the 
strongest argument to prove that there is one, be- 
cause a mind that has such power is proof positive 
that there is a God. Sin is both theistic and anti- 
theistic. Atheism never would have been thought 
of but for theism. "None deny there is a God," 
says Lord Bacon, "but those for whom it maketh 
that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing 
more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the 
heart of man, than by this, that atheists will ever 
be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted 
in it within themselves, and would be glad to be 
strengthened by the consent of others : nay, more, 
you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism, 
and not recant; whereas, if they did truly think 
that there were no such thing as God, why should 
they trouble themselves ?" * Atheism is a kind of 
dead theism, because characteristics are ascribed to 
nature which belong to God. The sword of the 
atheist has two edges, but no handle. Every time 

* Essay on Atheism. 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 21 

he uses it he cuts himself. The greatest thought 
in existence is God, and the soul that has lost God 
is lost. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ATTEIBUTES OF GOD. 

The divine attributes belong to a nature, and 
that nature is pure spirit, this pure spirit 
having absolute simplicity, or oneness. There 
cannot be two Gods. One excludes a second. 
God is self-sufficient: his attributes are not con- 
ditioned by anything outside of him. He exists 
of necessity. The creation might sink into noth- 
ingness, and there would be no contradiction, but 
God must remain as he is. When we have a prop- 
er understanding of any single perfection of the 
Deity, we may logically infer other perfections 
from that, because there is nothing in him that 
is isolated. 

1. The eternity of God. Eternity is stationary; 
time moves. God fills eternity, and lives in it. 
He has no past and no future — a constant present. 
If he lived moment by moment, as we do, he w T ould 
be older at one time than at another. We cannot 
speak of God, however, as either old or young. He 
is the " I Am," the Being that Is, the King of the 
eternities. " From everlasting to everlasting thou 
art God." Ps. xc. 2. That which has no beginning 



22 THEOLOGY. 

has no end. Beginningless existence is therefore 
divine and timeless. God is eternally conscious of 
all that is in his nature ; he has therefore no remi- 
niscence and no laws of association. He has no suc- 
cession, because eternity is the mode of his existence • 
and yet, viewing him in relation to the universe, his 
acts appear to follow one after the other. He is thus 
unconditioned and self-conditioned. His eternity 
makes him timeless, while his perfection enables 
him to enter into time. Unless w T e are on our 
guard, we will make God powerless by very great- 
ness — make him unable to do what man can do 
quite easily. 

2. The immutability of God. If he were to 
change, he must change for the better or the worse. 
If for the better, he is imperfect ; if for the worse, 
he is sinful ; in either case he is not God. " I am 
the Lord, I change not." Mai. iii. 6. Infinite ex- 
cellence conveys the idea that God has in himself 
every possible good. As the right and the true can- 
not change, so God being the source of these he can- 
not change. Unbounded space must remain as it 
is ; so God being equally unbounded he must re- 
main as he is. We can predicate change only of 
the finite. Independence and immutability are 
linked together. Immutability is not so much a 
single attribute as a characteristic of all the attri- 
butes. As the result of a purpose God may create, 
become incarnate, redeem, govern, without causing 
any change in the divine nature. It is not neces- 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 28 

sary to be inactive in order to be immutable. The 
immutability of God is not to be viewed as a mere 
physical attribute, acting by a natural necessity. It 
has its true place when it is made to centre in the 
character of God. Immutability is then seen to be 
free absolute goodness. This destroys pantheism. 
If at one time God frowns upon a man, and at an- 
other time smiles upon him, this implies no change 
in the divine character, but it does imply that the 
man's character is changed from evil to good. 

3. The omnipresence of God. Although God is 
a Spirit, and cannot be in space as matter is in it, 
he must be somewhere instead of nowhere. We 
conceive of our soul as in our body ; so we say it 
is here, and not there : God being infinite, we speak 
of him as everywhere. " Do not I fill heaven and 
earth ? saith the Lord." Jer. xxiii. 24. God is not 
only present where matter and mind exist, but is 
present beyond these. As he fills the eternal times 
without having to pass through years or ages, so he 
fills the infinite spaces without having to pass from 
one point to another. " The centre of God is every- 
where ; his circumference nowhere." While we be- 
lieve in the divine immanence — that is, that God 
acts in nature — we equally believe that he manifests 
himself to the righteous as he does not to the wick- 
ed. The remedial influence which is brought to 
bear upon souls is different in hind from the power 
which sustains them. 

4. The omnipotence of God. We know from 



24 THEOLOGY. 

consciousness that power and causation are reali- 
ties. If we have an infinite mind, we have infi- 
nite power. Omnipotence is sufficient for anything 
that does not imply a contradiction. Although the 
divine power is absolute, it must act in harmony 
with law, and not as blind force. Might does not 
make right. God can do many things that he nev- 
er will do. The collective power of the creation is 
not the collective power of the Creator. Divine 
omnipotence and the divine will are not the same. 
The omnipotence of God is simple power : the will 
of God is power acting freely. Almightiness enters 
into every attribute, and in the order of nature it 
comes before the power which is moral. In the 
creation of matter and life omnipotence works with- 
out means : in certain other cases means are used. 
The creation of an atom is as truly an evidence of 
divine power as is the creation of a world. Al- 
mightiness arrests the attention of the race more 
quickly than any other attribute of the Deity. 

5. The omniscience of God. The Divine Being 
sees everything at once by direct vision. He 
knows the nature of his own mind and all which 
it contains. A limitless spirit has limitless possi- 
bilities ; consequently, God knows all that is possi- 
ble. He knows also all that is actual, whether it 
relates to the past, present or future. This knowl- 
edge of the actual follows the divine plan : the 
knowledge of the possible precedes the divine plan. 
Another kind of knowledge has been imagined — • 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 25 

namely, the conditionally possible. For instance : 

a man dies at the age of forty. We say he might 
have lived till the age of sixty if he had been care- 
ful with his health. God knows how the millions 
of the saved would have sinned and suffered through- 
out eternity if they had been left to themselves. In 
these cases we see what might have happened. There 
is no need of this division of knowledge, as it comes 
under the classification of the possible. 

6. The wisdom of God. " Wisdom is the excel- 
lency of knowledge." To be wise is a higher char- 
acteristic than to know. " Men may have knowl- 
edge without wisdom, but not wisdom without 
knowledge." Wisdom enables one to select the 
best end, and the best means of attaining that end. 
It is thus knowledge turned to good account. The 
divine wisdom is not a single attribute. It is a 
compound of knowledge, skill and goodness, and 
is both intellectual and moral. The only thing 
which clouds the wisdom of God to our mind is 
the fact of evil, and yet we must believe that that 
wisdom will appear all the more conspicuous as the 
divine system unfolds itself in the coming eternity. 
" Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his 
judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Rom. 
xi. 33. 

7. The self-determining power of God. The di- 
vine will is preceptive when it commands and de- 
cretive when it purposes. The purpose of God to 



26 THEOLOGY. 

glorify himself is called his antecedent will, and 
his purpose to create in order to manifest that 
glory is called his consequent will. If God is not 
absolutely free, he is held in the grasp of an abso- 
lute necessity. In that case he is not a person, but 
a characterless energy. The divine will, however, 
does not act independently of the nature which is 
back of it. God's will and God's reason blend 
together. The divine character is not found wholly 
in the divine will. God, by the perfections of his 
being, has moral excellence apart from the will, 
and, that moral excellence being complete, the will 
adopts it. The will cannot create righteousness. 
The righteousness has a nature of its own apart 
from the will. It is chosen because it is good — 
not merely good in the abstract, as if it were a 
power above God, but good as absolute worth in 
the very nature of God. This good because of its 
purity seeks the will, and the will because of its 
freedom seeks the good ; and the union of the two 
gives us complete character. Mere will is reason- 
less, and mere nature is necessity ; but a wise will 
blending with a loving necessity is the exalted lib- 
erty of God. 

8. The holiness of God. Holiness is the inward 
purity of the divine character; or, in other words, 
it is " moral inviolability/' The living creatures 
mentioned in the book of Revelation are repre- 
sented as " resting not day nor night, saying, Holy, 
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!" Rev. iv. 8. 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, 27 

This utterance of the word "holy" three times 
conveys the idea of great sacredness. The Divine 
Being shrinks from the least taint of evil, bat finds 
infinite delight in goodness. God may create a 
universe or not as he pleases, but he cannot love 
holiness or not as he pleases. As " it is impossible 
for him to lie," it is impossible for him to make 
choice of sin. 

9. The justice of God. Justice is that moral 
quality which leads God to give all creatures their 
due. " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
right '?" Gen. xviii. 25. When fallen man is left 
with the simple theology of conscience, and is not 
quieted by false arguments, his eye centres more on 
God's justice than on God's mercy. Justice is ulti- 
mate, and is therefore more comprehensive than 
mercy. The greatest good of the greatest number, 
or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is 
not the reason why God acts justly. He acts justly 
because it is right to do so. The justice of God is 
seen in his works and words, in his deeds and reve- 
lations, in his guidance and government, in his de- 
cisions and punishments. God may be just, and 
yet give the righteous a greater reward than they 
deserve; but he cannot be just if he inflicts upon 
the wicked a greater punishment than they de- 
serve. If God makes a gracious promise, justice 
compels him to fulfill it. 

10. The love of God. God loves his own being 
and character, and finds complete satisfaction in 



28 THEOLOGY. 

himself. Not only does love furnish a principle of 
unity to the creation, but it furnishes a principle 
of unity to the Creator. There is with God the 
love of benevolence. This is good-will ; it seeks the 
well-being of the creature. God has not originated 
any contrivance for the mere purpose of producing 
pain. The normal working of all creatures ends 
in happiness. Infringement of law ends in pain. 
God being the good, he has no motive which 
prompts to evil. There is also the love of compla- 
cency. This is delight in goodness and delight in 
worth of any kind. God never can look upon the 
wicked and the righteous in the same way. He 
must hate sin and love holiness. It was benevo- 
lence which led God to provide a way of salvation 
for lost men ; and when men were restored to the 
divine image it was complacency which led God to 
find delight in the change. Pity goes out to those 
in distress ; forbearance arises in view of the per- 
versity of men ; mercy has special reference to the 
guilty. 

11. The truth of God. God is truth, even as he 
is love. Whatever his declarations may be, they 
must be true. The promises of God are sometimes 
absolute and sometimes conditional. They are ab- 
solute, as in the promise of redemption through 
Christ, and in the promise of seed-time and har- 
vest while the earth remains. They are conditional, 
as when forgiveness follows repentance, and salva- 
tion follows faith. God is truthful in his offers 



THE TRIUNE GOD. 29 

of mercy to men, although he knows that many 
will reject these offers. A father may desire the 
reformation of his son when it is certain that the 
son is fixed in his evil habits. Divine punishment 
will assuredly be meted out to the wicked. 

Blessedness connects itself with the entire work- 
ing of the divine nature. The fact that the attri- 
butes of God are in a state of harmony shows that 
he must be for ever blessed. There being no defi- 
ciencies in the Infinite Mind, there is nothing but 
infinite enjoyment. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE TRIUNE GOD. 

Neither angel nor man knows of himself 
whether God should exist as one person or as 
three persons. The subject is beyond the reach 
of the finite understanding. The universe points 
to one God, but as to whether this one God has 
a plurality of distinctions or not the universe is 
silent. 

I. A Divine Trinity not Impossible. 

We know that a human soul and a human body 
can be so united as to make one man. This is won- 
derful, and the wonder is heightened from the fact 
that the soul and the body are different substances. 

3 



30 THEOLOGY. 

If two unlike substances can thus constitute one 
man, is it unreasonable that two persons having 
the same substance should constitute one God ? 
Again : if we have an 1, does not that make nec- 
essary the existence of a Thou f Is it to be sup- 
posed that a Being like God dwelt in absolute 
solitude throughout a past eternity? Are not an 
I and a Thou necessary in the very constitution of 
the Deity, and equally necessary to furnish com- 
munion during a dateless existence ? This at least 
is possible. Besides, does not love, from its nature, 
demand an object, and divine love a divine object ? 
It would seem so. In this way we have a plural- 
ity of persons in the Godhead, and the sweetest fel- 
lowship as a result of it. 

But do not love and its object, the I and Thou, 
the body and soul, suggest simply two persons ? 
That is all. It may be, however, that it is easier 
to conceive of three persons in the Godhead than 
two. Two persons seem to stand apart like two 
pillars, there being nothing to connect the one with 
the other. In the case of the soul and the body 
there must be a something which unites the two 
together, thus presenting a certain kind of three- 
foldness in the constitution of man. In the same 
way the divine I and Thou, the divine love and its 
object, must have a divine bond of union ; and 
this bond of union gives us the third person of 
the Godhead. 

It would seem also that a voluntary mind can 



THE TRIUNE GOD. 31 

come only to full self-consciousness by a threefold 
movement. 1. There is the mind as subject. 2. 
There is that mind viewing itself as object. 3. 
There is the same mind resolving itself back into 
unity. Now, in the Godhead the Father may be 
thought of as the eternal subject ; the Son, as the 
eternal object, expressing the divine fullness ; and 
the Spirit, as that person who eternally resolves 
the subject and object back into unity. 

These thoughts are not presented as proofs of 
the Trinity ; they simply show that it is not an 
impossible doctrine. Let them be accepted, then, 
for what they are w r orth. 

II. Evidence of the Divine Trinity. 
The Bible is the only source of proof. Let us 
begin with this passage : " Go ye therefore, and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost." Matt, xxviii. 19. Three persons are 
spoken of here, and the three are put upon a 
level. Those who are baptized are baptized in 
the name of the three persons. Baptism is an 
act of worship, and the worship is made to centre 
in the three persons. How could this be if they 
were not divine? Suppose the formula were to 
read in this way : Baptizing them in the name of 
God the Father, and of the created Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit as divine influence, — would not 
the whole be without meaning? As the passage 



32 THEOLOGY. 

stands it is a sublime declaration respecting the 
three persons of the Godhead : when a man is 
baptized he feels that he is set apart to the ser- 
vice of the Triune Deity. " Baptism has always 
been administered in the Church in the name of 
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. How 
ineradically this usage was fixed in the Church 
appears most clearly from the fact that even those 
to whom the formula was dogmatically unsuitable 
- — the Ebionites, for instance — did not venture to 
dispense with it." * 

Take, now, the apostolic benediction as further 
evidence : " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and the love of God, and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen." 2 Cor. 
xiii. 14. Here again is an act of worship, and the 
same three persons are mentioned as in the formula 
of baptism. Grace as centring in Christ, love as 
centring in God, and communion as centring in 
the Holy Ghost, express personality ; and that the 
three persons are equally divine is the fair inference 
from the passage. Christ is even placed first in the 
benediction — a strange thing if he is not one of the 
persons of the Godhead. 

Observe this other passage : " Elect according to 
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through 
sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and 
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace 
unto you, and peace, be multiplied." 1 Pet. i. 2. 
* Dorner, Doct. of the Person of Christ, vol. i. p. 168. 



THE TRIUNE GOD. 33 

Here is the same threefold arrangement. The sal- 
vation of the Christian is not traced back to one 
divine person : all the three bear a part in this 
great work. 

III. Explanation of the Divine Trinity. 

The doctrine is partly mysterious and partly 
plain. The mysterious part is above the reason, 
but not contrary to it. The use of the word " per- 
son " demands notice. A person, in common lan- 
guage, has a distinct nature of his own. Not in 
this way are we to understand the different persons 
of the Godhead, because if each person had a dis- 
tinct nature we should have three Gods. The 
meaning of the word "person," therefore, is pecu- 
liar. There is but one divine nature to all the three 
persons. In this way we have a trinity in unity. 
God is not one in the sense in which he is three. 
I could not say that three men are one man, for 
they have three distinct natures, but I can say that 
three persons are one God, for they have only one 
divine nature. 

The question may be asked, Are there three sets 
of divine attributes ? jSTo : that would give us 
three Gods. There is but one omnipotence, one 
omniscience ; and so with all the other attributes. 
Each person may be spoken of as infinite, because 
the one infinite essence belongs to all the three in 
common. There are not three infinities in the sense 
of three infinite natures, as that would be tritheism. 



34 THEOLOGY. 

We reach now the point that the Trinity is found 
in the very constitution of the Godhead. It is not 
dependent on anything out of God for its existence, 
neither is it any threefold method of divine mani- 
festation. As far as our knowledge of the Trinity 
is concerned, that knowledge comes to us in con- 
nection with the plan of redemption ; but even if 
there were no redemption, the Trinity would still 
be a fact of the Godhead. 

There is an order among the divine persons. The 
Father comes first, the Son second, the Spirit third. 
It is not to be understood, however, that there are 
degrees of greatness among the persons. They are 
all equally divine and equally eternal. It was the 
place of the Father to send the Son, the place of 
the Son to assume human nature, and the place of 
the Spirit to purify the soul. There is a something 
which characterizes the Son that does not character- 
ize the Father, and a something which characterizes 
the Spirit that does not characterize the Father and 
the Son. There is a property which marks off 
each person, and that property is incommunicable. 
" The Son is never said to send the Father nor to 
operate through him ; nor is the Spirit ever said to 
send the Father or the Son, or to operate through 
them."* If the three persons were alike in every 
respect, their identity would be lost : they would 
be resolved into one person. The Father is not 
God independently of the Son, nor the Son God 
* Dr. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. i. p. 445. 



THE PLAN OF GOD. 35 

independently of the Father, nor the Spirit God 
independently of the Father and the Son : the 
three persons constitute the one God. 

The Trinity is not merely a speculative doctrine, 
as some scholars would have us believe ; it is in- 
tensely practical. It forms the basis of the whole 
redemptive process and fits the wants of the sinful 
mind. I am estranged from God ; I want a Medi- 
ator ; I want a Sanctifier : thus man's need points 
to the three divine persons. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PLAN OF GOD IX GENEKAL. 

The plan of God presupposes that he has an ul- 
timate end which governs him. What is that ulti- 
mate end? It is self-manifestation. When we 
say that God makes himself his chief end, his glory 
his chief end, and the manifestation of his glory his 
chief end, the meaning is essentially the same in 
each statement. There is no selfishness in this, be- 
cause " God is love." He being the highest good, 
the design is to manifest that good throughout in- 
finite space and endless time. The entire excellency 
of the divine nature and character is called " the 
glory of God." 

Let us go back in imagination to the time when 
nothing existed save the Divine Being. Why should 
he create ? No reason can be found outside of God, 



36 THEOLOGY. 

because nothing exists. He is thus thrown back 
upon himself to find in himself his chief end. If 
God was his own end before the creation, he must 
continue for ever to be his own end : the creation 
cannot furnish a motive that is greater than the 
Creator. In this idea of divine manifestation we 
can see that God is unwilling to remain by himself. 
So glorious and blessed is his nature he would dif- 
fuse himself in radiant forms through eternity and 
immensity. We behold nothing in the universe, 
evil excepted, but streams from the infinite Source 
of life. Though the essential glory of God re- 
ceives no increase, his manifested glory spreads out 
with augmenting power for ever ; and as his eye 
penetrates the vast deep of an endless futurity, be- 
holding the mighty succession of spirits and men, 
and these drawing nearer and nearer to him, he 
sees his own ultimate end ever shining forth above 
all, while the creatures of his power are made joy- 
ful in the one chief purpose and in the one increas- 
ing manifestation. The glory of God and the 
good of the universe are linked together. " Thou 
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and 
power : for thou hast created all things, and for thy 
pleasure they are and were created." Rev. iv. 11. 

That God has a plan is an idea that commends 
itself to the human reason. It can be illustrated 
in the following way : I intend to build a house. 
The style of architecture, size of the edifice, num- 
ber of the rooms, doors and windows, and many 



THE PLAN OF GOP. 37 

other things, are all sketched out, and the building 
is to be erected according to the plan. Even the 
persons who shall work on the building and the 
wages they shall receive are determined upon. Xoth- 
ing is left to chance. So God makes selection of a 
plan for the universe. TTe should have no evi- 
dence of the divine existence if all were confusion. 
The creation reveals laws that are certain, showing 
that all is fixed. The fact that God has originated 
matter and mind leads us to say that he always in- 
tended to originate them. Thus we are led back to 
an eternal plan. The divine acts are simply the 
outworking of the divine purpose. As the paint- 
ing of the artist points back to an ideal he had in 
his mind, so the marvelous painting of the crea- 
tion points back to the ideal which God had in his 
mind. " The Lord of hosts hath sworn 3 saying, 
Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass : 
and as I have purposed, so shall it stand " (Isa. xiv. 
24) ; " I am God, and there is none like me, de- 
claring the end from the beginning, and from an- 
cient times the things that are not yet done, saying, 
My counsel shall stand, and 1 will do all my pleas- 
ure." Isa. xlvi. 9, 10. 

Does the foreknowledge of God precede his de- 
cree ? or does the decree of God precede his fore- 
knowledge ? The Arminian theologians believe 
that foreknowledge comes first. Omniscience, they 
say, is an attribute, and so it must be viewed as ex- 
isting before an act of the divine will. We admit 



38 THEOLOGY. 

that God knows all that is possible previous to any 
decree. Out of an infinite number of possible 
systems, however, God selected one. That one 
system was then known as the actual system, and 
not as the possible. The choice of the system, 
therefore, must, in the order of thought, precede 
the knowledge of that choice. If I think about 
building a ship, I cannot tell what kind of a ship 
I shall build until I have made choice of a plan. 
I may know of hundreds of possible plans, all 
suitable for different kinds of ships, but not till I 
select one particular plan can J know of the ship I 
am to build. Of course, in the mind of God his 
decree and foreknowledge are equally eternal, yet 
according to a principle of order the decree precedes 
the foreknowledge. This is the way the Calvinistic 
theologians view the matter. 

" Foreknowledge," we are told, " does not make 
events certain — it only proves them so." This is 
correct. The events, however, must be made cer- 
tain in some way; and in what way can that be 
but by the divine purpose ? If neither the divine 
foreknowledge nor the divine purpose makes events 
certain, we are thrown into complete confusion. 
Foreknowledge, however, really necessitates fore- 
ordination. " If God foreseeing that if he created 
a certain free agent and placed him in certain rela- 
tions, he would freely act in a certain way, and yet 
with that knowledge proceeded to create that very 
free agent and put him in precisely those positions, 



THE PLAN OF GOD. 39 

God would, in so doing, obviously predetermine the 
certain futurition of the acts foreseen/' * 

There is an idea floating in many minds that if 
God decrees that a thing shall be, he makes it to be 
by his own efficiency, and thus destroys human 
freedom. Certainly, in the case of sin he does not 
make it to be, although by a definite purpose he 
permits it to be; and when he decrees that men 
shall be wise and good he works through the me- 
dium of their thoughts, feelings and actions. It 
is just as impossible to take freedom from the mind 
as it is to bestow freedom upon matter. A general 
may lay out the plan of a great campaign, making 
it certain that thousands of men will act in thou- 
sands of ways as the result of that plan, and yet 
the liberty of no one be infringed upon. The 
father of a family can make numbers of things 
certain among his children by reason of a govern- 
ing purpose, they meanwhile being perfectly free 
in all their movements. All of us are foreordain- 
ing what comes to pass in certain spheres, with no 
loss of liberty in those who are affected by us. If 
a man can thus act, surely a Being of infinite re- 
sources can arrange all the affairs of his empire 
without encroaching upon human freedom. If 
God has no such sovereignty in his dominions, 
then he is merely a spectator, watching to see what 
his creatures will do, dependent upon them, and 
not they upon him. 

*A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 203. 



40 THEOLOGY. 

The divine decree touching sin is that which per- 
plexes certain minds. Now, that God has chosen 
a system with sin in it is a fact. We therefore 
have these different links in the chain: 1. It is 
certain that all men sin. 2. It is certain that God 
permits all men to sin. 3. It is certain that he 
chose to permit them to sin. 4. It is certain that 
he foreknew they would sin. If a man selects a 
site for a house which, with many advantages, has 
the one disadvantage that a miasmatic taint is found 
there, it will be hard to prove that the miasmatic 
taint did not enter into the man's calculations. Of 
course it was not for the sake of the evil that the 
man made choice of the place, and yet he did make 
choice of it knowing that the evil was there; so 
that, in a sense, it had some relation to his will : 
he chose to have the evil rather than not have the 
particular site for his house. He never approved 
the evil, but always condemned it, and put himself 
to great trouble and expense in order to destroy it ; 
being conscious, however, that it never would be 
completely overcome. Just why he chose that 
one spot for a house, when there was certain dan- 
ger connected with it, has never been known. 
Whether he meant that the evil should be a 
warning to others, or whether the advantages of 
the place were of such a high order that it was 
better to have them with the evil than to have 
lesser advantages without it, we cannot say. One 
thing is clear : the man did not originate the mias- 



CREATION. 41 

matic taint. It was at the most only negatively 
adopted, the affirmative choice resting supremely 
on the fine advantages of the place. All we can 
say is, that it was brought into the purchase of the 
site by a permissive decree. So the Most High pur- 
posed to permit sin, using no efficiency to produce it. 



CHAPTER V. 

GOD'S WORK OF CREATION. 

In the first chapter of Genesis w 7 e have the chief 
account of the creation. There we learn that the 
heavens and the earth had a beginning. The He- 
brew word bara, which is translated by the word 
created, means " to cut, to cut out, to form by cut- 
ting and carving/' Certain persons have therefore 
thought that it cannot be used in the sense of cre- 
ating out of nothing. It is the best word, however, 
which the Hebrew writer could use to express ab- 
solute creation. If we must in all cases follow the 
primary sense of words, we shall be nothing but 
materialists. When we speak of the spiritual and 
the unseen, w T e have to put a meaning into language 
that thus it may express spiritual and unseen real- 
ities. We cling, then, to the great truth, " that 
things which are seen were not made of things 
which do appear." Heb. xi. 3. A creation destroys 
atheism, and a Creator destroys pantheism. The 



42 THEOLOGY. 

one overshadowing thought in the first chapter of 
Genesis is the personality of God. That first chap- 
ter is so dense with meaning, so orderly and sub- 
lime, so pure and impressive, that divinity radiates 
from every part of it. 

With regard to a correct interpretation of this 
opening portion of the Bible, it is a question 
whether any one can furnish it at present. Certain 
writers suppose that all the changes of the ancient 
earth took place during that vast period which in- 
tervened between the creation of matter and the 
advent of the first day, and that after the long 
ages of geology had ended, then began the work 
of the six literal days of creation — a creation that 
is modern. Others think that the days of Genesis 
represent great periods. We adopt this latter view. 

The word " day " has different meanings. In 
Gen. i. 5 it is used to mark the time of light as con- 
trasted with the darkness : " God called the light 
day." Both evening and morning are also called 
day, while in Gen. ii. 4 it is made to cover the 
whole work of creation : " These are the gener- 
ations of the heavens and the earth when they 
were created, in the day that the Lord God made 
the earth and the heavens." We speak of "the 
day of salvation," showing that the word has an 
extended meaning. 

Objection is made to this use of the word " day," 
on the ground that it seems to clash with the fourth 
commandment, where the language is : " In six 



CREATION. 48 

days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea. and 
all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : 
wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and 
hallowed it." Ex. xx. 11. The real thought may 
be that God had a working week suited to his na- 
ture, a week measuring vast cycles of time. Dur- 
ing the continuance of this great week of the Al- 
mighty he was at work. Having labored for six 
long periods till the earth and the heavens were 
finished, he then rested during a seventh period. 
This seventh period is manifestly not of twenty- 
four hours, because it still continues. And, what 
is worthy of special attention, there is no mention 
of an evening and a morning on that seventh day 
of God's rest. This may intimate that the divine 
sabbath is of long continuance — that it is to extend 
over all the centuries of human time, and thus be the 
great redemptive day to bless fallen men. As God 
rests during the seventh day of his week, what 
more fit than that man should rest during the sev- 
enth day of his week, that thus he may keep in 
remembrance the work and ways of the Most 
High ? The Sabbath of man is in proportion to 
his week, and the Sabbath of God is in proportion 
to his ; so there is no contradiction. 

That the earth with its plants and animals ex- 
isted long before the time of Adam is evident. 
There are rocks which were formed by gradual 
additions of matter. Sediment was collected year 
after year and age after age, and thus those rocks 



44 THEOLOaY. 

increased iu size. As the rivers swept along 
their course, particles of matter mingled with the 
waters and settled at the bottom or were carried to 
the mouth of the stream and formed there tracts 
of land. Thus we have sedimentary rocks, and 
deltas like those of the Rhine and the Mississippi. 
Remains of animals are found imbedded in the 
rocks, which prove that the earth is of great an- 
tiquity. 

What the original state of matter was neither 
the Bible nor science informs us. Our globe at 
one time may have been a fiery ball in space. 
Then by degrees the surface may have cooled, 
leaving the centre a mass of fire. Volcanic erup- 
tions seem to sustain such a view. The condition 
of the earth as first mentioned in Genesis must 
have been long after that fiery period, because the 
waters then covered it. To say that the waters re- 
fer to matter in its gaseous state seems like forcing 
language into harmony w r ith a theory. 

In looking over the narrative of the creation one 
or two striking facts arrest the attention. For in- 
stance, there is the appearance of the vegetable 
kingdom before the animal. This is the logical 
order, the lower coming into existence before the 
higher. It is also the chronological order — the 
creating of food, then the creatures that were to 
use it. " Science gathers but indistinct records 
from the earth on this point, yet plainly has no 
counter-statement ; and as far as there are any in- 



CKEATION. 45 

dications, they favor the above/' Vegetation was 
also necessary in the plan of God for the formation 
of coal ; thus there was a preparation through un- 
told ages for the comfort and advancement of 
man. 

Another point, noticed by Professor Guyot, is 
the double ivork which takes place on the third day 
and also on the sixth. The dry land was made to 
appear and the plant kingdom introduced — both on 
the third day. The organic period must begin be- 
fore the inorganic period ends. The double work 
on the sixth day is the creation of mammals and 
man. Here, while the whole comes to a climax, 
the climax has a finger pointing ahead. Though 
man is the last link in the chain, he is at the same 
time the beginning of a new order of things. Mor- 
al law is now seen to take the place of physical law, 
and he who is made in the image of God is to be 
the subject of the divine administration, having a 
life and a character that are to continue for ever. 

" The Bible says that man was the last creation. 
Geology says the same. 

" The Bible says that quadrupeds next preceded 
man. Geology says the same. 

" The Bible says that inferior animal species, up 
to reptiles, were created before quadrupeds. Geol- 
ogy says the same. 

" The Bible says that there was, earlier, an age 
without animal life. Geology says the same. 

" The Bible says that after the world had been 



46 THEOLOGY. 

long in formation (for its three days) the sun, moon 
and stars appeared in the heavens. Geology also 
makes this an event long after the earth's begin- 
ning. 

"Thus it is clear that there is an accordance to 
a considerable extent, and that facts in science are 
stated in the Bible, although not there recorded 
simply as scientific facts." * 

The existence of a class of beings higher than 
man may now be noted. It is reasonable that an 
order of intelligences should fill the space between 
man and God. The Bible makes mention of angels, 
but does not say when they were created. It is evi- 
dent, however, that they were called into being be- 
fore the time of Adam. They are not a race, but 
were created as distinct persons, and evidently at 
one time. Angels are spirits, and Christ informs 
us that "a spirit hath not flesh and bones." Thus 
they are immaterial. The language, " angel of 
light," does not point to any physical organism : 
it rather marks the contrast between the good and 
evil angels. It is true that the angels who appeared 
to Abraham looked like men, and equally true that 
those who were seen at the sepulchre of Christ had 
the human form ; but we cannot reason from such 
facts that they are corporeal beings. The likelihood 
is, that the body was only assumed for a special oc- 
casion, just as one of the persons of the Godhead 
took the human form in Old-Testament times when 
* Prof. Dana, in Biblioth. Sacra, vol. xiv. p. 520. 



CREATION. 47 

he appeared to men. Theophanies and angeloph- 
anies are of the same character — transient appear- 
ances. The fact that angels are invisible to us at 
present would intimate that they are immaterial. 
If the possession of a body were natural to them, 
it could be seen now as w r ell as formerly. The idea 
that no finite intelligence can act without a body is 
merely a speculation. Reason is not able to make 
that point certain. 

Angels are spoken of as "innumerable;" their 
pow T er is seemingly miraculous ; Peter was delivered 
out of prison by an angel. They take part in the 
chief transactions of this earth, and manifest great 
interest in the plan of redemption. They were 
present at the giving of the Law ; they proclaimed 
peace to the nations when Christ came • they minis- 
tered to the Saviour during the days of his humil- 
iation ; they rejoice when men turn to God ; they 
comfort and support the righteous amid the trials 
and temptations of life ; they convey them to their 
eternal home at death ; they will bear a part in the 
solemn scenes of the final judgment. In fact, they 
are a kind of celestial missionaries laboring w 7 ith 
intense love for the salvation of men — a love that 
is all the greater in that no man beholds it, and 
in that they receive no thanks from men. These 
noble spirits are of different orders, as principalities 
and powers, thrones and dominions. Gabriel seems 
to be sent on special embassies, and Michael is of- 
ficially marked off as the archangel. 



48 THEOLOGY. 

Respecting the fallen angels a few thoughts may 
be stated. They must have sinned shortly after 
their creation, because if they had lived for years 
in a state of purity a habit of holiness would have 
held them fast. Their first sin has been thought 
to be pride, from this passage : " Not a novice, lest 
being lifted up with pride he fall into the con- 
demnation of the devil." 1 Tim. iii. 6. Another 
view is that the first sin of the angels consisted in 
their unwillingness to render due homage to the 
Son of God. The passage which suggests this is 
in these words : " When he bringeth in the first- 
begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the 
angels of God worship him." Heb. i. 6. Still an- 
other opinion, expressed by an eminent writer, 
takes this form : " Whilst Lucifer was a good an- 
gel he saw in the very countenance of God that he 
had from eternity resolved to become a man in 
time, and to assume, not the nature of angels, but 
the nature of men ; and this stirred up his envy 
and caused his fall." * 

Persons object to the idea of fallen angels, sup- 
posing that beings with such comprehensive knowl- 
edge never would have allowed themselves to sin. 
This proves nothing, for we see men of the highest 
attainments utterly godless. Others say that it 
is contrary to the benevolence of God for him to 
permit angels to tempt men to sin; consequently, 
there are no such beings. It is certain that God 

* Dorner, DocL of the Person of Christ, Divis. ii. vol. ii. p. 77. 



PROVIDENCE. 49 

permits men to tempt each other and to ruin each 
other. The objection, therefore, has no value. The 
personality of Satan and of the unclean spirits is 
denied, individuals understanding the language to 
represent bad feelings and principles, not bad an- 
gels. Christ declares that the world of woe was 
" prepared for the devil and his angels " (Matt. xxv. 
41), and Jude speaks of " the angels w T ho kept not 
their first estate," telling us that " God hath re- 
served them in everlasting chains under darkness 
unto the judgment of the great day/' Principles 
are not punished, but persons. Satan is called " the 
prince of the power of the air " (Eph. ii. 2), as if he 
were the ruler of the hosts of darkness. He may 
have been the first that sinned, and the first that 
led the other angels into evil. The fallen powers 
must be numerous, because their malign influence 
reaches all mankind. The plural " devils," w T hich 
we find in different parts of the Bible, should be 
demons. There is only one devil, but many de- 
mons. He who resists these foul spirits will be 
stronger for ever; he who yields to their influence 
will be doomed for ever. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PKOVIDENCE OF GOD. 

All systems admit a something that is beyond 
nature, and works through it. This something 
may be viewed as Fate, or as Force, or as the 



50 THEOLOGY. 

Nameless Infinite, or as God. No man rests in 
what he sees. Divine providence is a necessity of 
ultimate truth and ultimate thought, and a neces- 
sity of the feelings of weakness, awe and fear. 
The " Positive Philosophy " is philosophy without 
the positive Being. It is the playing with law^s 
after having rejected the Lawgiver — playing with 
second causes after having rejected the First Cause. 
There is no evidence that a single one of the fallen 
angels is an atheist. Atheism is a sin peculiar to 
men. 

" By " divine providence " is meant the preser- 
vation and government of the universe. Our word 
" providence " is from the Latin providentia, and 
means foreseeing, forethought, timely care and pru- 
dence. A teacher exercises providential care over 
a school, a merchant over his business, a father over 
his family, and a monarch over his subjects. That 
providence is not a fancy is evident from the fact 
that the human race generally believe in it. The 
Bible makes it certain : " He giveth to the beast 
his food, and to the young ravens which cry " (Ps. 
cxlvii. 9); "Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: 
for thou also hast wrought all our works in us " 
(Isa. xx vi. 12) ; "All my springs are in thee " (Ps. 
lxxxvii. 7) ; " For of him, and through him, and 
to him are all things : to whom be glory for ever." 
Rom. xi. 36. 

The method of providence is more perplexing to 
us than the fad. 



PROVIDENCE. 51 

One theory affirms that God acts directly upon 
all created things. Nature, as such, is destitute of 
power. It can neither begin nor continue without 
the divine agency. Absolute dependence is the 
characteristic of the entire creation. Laws of na- 
ture are simply names for the uniformity of the 
divine action. The power of God, directed by wis- 
dom and goodness, explains all the changes of the 
universe. " In him we live, and move, and have 
our being." Acts xvii. 28. This view is adopted 
by many distinguished scholars. 

Another theory believes that God acts through 
second causes. These second causes are viewed as 
facts in nature, and also as the workmanship of 
God. It cannot be denied that the elements act 
when they are brought together in certain relations. 
Let the heat of the sun reach water, and vapor as- 
cends. Let the air be cooled, and the vapor is 
changed to rain. Let the moon's influence reach 
the ocean, and we have the tides. When steam is 
generated it becomes a power to drive machinery. 
The air is a force, and is the medium by which 
sound travels. Electricity conveys the commerce 
of the mind. These second causes, however, need 
the guidance of an intelligent being. Steam and 
electricity will accomplish little unless man directs 
them. In the same way God uses second causes 
to carry forward his designs. The elements of 
nature are his agents. " Fire and hail, snow and 
vapor, stormy wind, fulfill his word." Ps. cxlviii. 



52 THEOLOGY. 

8. This view strikes us more favorably than the 
other. 

To say that the providence of God is general is 
not sufficient : it is universal, and in that way it is 
particular. A sparrow cannot fall to the ground 
without his permission, and the hairs of our head 
are all numbered. A special providence is from 
its nature limited. The Israelites crossing the Red 
Sea in safety, the fatal wounding of Ahab from a 
bow drawn at a venture, and the conversion of 
Paul, were special providences. When the French 
fleet of forty ships, coming against New England 
in 1746, was destroyed, that was a noted instance 
of a special providence. Miracles are special provi- 
dences. God may use second causes or he may not 
in working miracles : in either case there is divine 
intervention. Miracles are not the result of some 
higher law in nature, as if a clock were made to 
strike a hundred times at the end of a hundred 
years, while before the end of that period it struck 
the hours as usual. A miracle is supernatural, but 
not a violation of the laws of nature. All the 
dead might be raised in a moment and no jar be 
given to the universe. No consistent theist can ob- 
ject to miracles. Only in the systems of atheism 
and pantheism are they out of place. 

" The believer in Christ's miracles/' says Pro- 
fessor Calderwood, " may fairly ask of scientific 
critics that they state any law of nature which was 
violated in any example of the Saviour's benevo- 



PROVIDENCE. 53 

lent doings, in a sense of the word i violation* 
which conflicts with the indubitable teaching of 
science concerning the unchangeableness of the 
laws of nature." "The record of Scripture pre- 
senting the narratives of Christ's miracles does not 
at any time represent our Saviour as interposing to 
stay for a brief period the action of fixed law, or to 
prevent the application of such law, in the history 
of a particular individual. In all these wonders of 
healing nothing more happens as to actual result, 
having a general bearing on procedure in the phys- 
ical world, than does happen when a cure of a 
critical phase of disease is accomplished by some 
newly-discovered appliance at command of medical 
art. These two cases are essentially different as to 
mode of action, but they are strictly identical as to 
result; and this identity amounts to a demonstra- 
tion of harmony with scientific requirements as 
these actually guide men to the discovery of new 
methods." * 

Providences are seen on every hand. A man 
through carelessness lets fall a lighted lamp on 
board of a ship in mid-ocean : the ship takes fire, 
and three hundred human beings are lost and two 
hundred saved. God's providence connects itself 
with those that are lost as well as with those that 
are saved. If it had been the plan of God to save 
the ship and passengers, he could have cautioned 
the man who had the lamp, so that he would not 

* Relations of Science and Religion, pp. 290, 293, 



54 THEOLOGY. 

let it fall ; but he did not do that. Sometimes he 
impresses souls, and thus saves them from danger 
and death. A man is walking on one side of the 
street, and the thought occurs to him. to cross over 
to the other side ; he follows the thought, and by 
that means is saved, for a house falls on the side of 
the street which he has left, which would have killed 
him had he remained there. A person may want 
to change his position in life, but God thinks it not 
best for him to change : he therefore throws an in- 
fluence around him and keeps him where he is. A 
certain man is about to fall by a great temptation : 
he is checked by a divine impulse and held fast to 
righteousness. 

" There is a government of men as moral and 
religious beings/ 5 remarks Isaac Taylor, " which is 
carried on chiefly by means of the fortuities of life. 
Those unforeseen accidents which so often control 
the lot of men constitute a superstratum in the sys- 
tem of human affairs wherein, peculiarly, the di- 
vine providence holds empire for the accomplish- 
ment of its special purposes. It is from this hid- 
den and inexhaustible mine of chances — chances, 
as we must call them — that the Governor of the 
world draws, with unfathomable skill, the mate- 
rials of his dispensations toward each individual of 
mankind. The world of nature affords no in- 
stances of complicated and exact contrivance com- 
parable to that which so arranges the vast chaos 
of contingencies as to produce, with unerring pre- 



PROVIDENCE. 00 

cision, a special order of events adapted to the 
character of every individual of the human fam- 
ily. Amid the whirl of myriads of fortuities the 
means are selected and combined for constructing 
as many independent machineries of moral disci- 
pline as there are moral agents in the world : and 
each apparatus is at once complete in itself and 
complete as part of a universal movement/' * 

Divine providence does not destroy human free- 
dom. We ourselves influence each other by exam- 
ple, argument, persuasion and the presentation of 
new truth ; and so we hold each other in check or 
excite to a course of obedience without in the least 
injuring the will. We are thus in our sphere ex- 
ercising providence, and surely God in his sphere 
may do the same. As far as the production of 
goodness is concerned, there is no difficulty: the 
difficulty is found in connecting the providence of 
God with the sin of man. We instinctively feel 
that God never can excite man to sin. and yet he 
may use the sin for a certain purpose. He did this 
in the case of Joseph and his brethren. The 
divine arrangement was that Joseph should go to 
Egypt, that there he might save much people 
alive: and the sin of his brethren was the means 
of sending him there. "They meant it for evil/ 5 
but " God meant it for good." The crucifixion of 
Christ, as that links on to the determination of God 
and the depravity of men, is even more striking 
* Natural Hist of Emthushasm^ p. 128. 



56 THEOLOGY. 

than the above case. The language is sharp and 
direct, there being no attempt to ease off the matter 
in the least : " Him, being delivered by the deter- 
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and 
slain." Acts ii. 23. Here is sin having a share 
in the very redemption that was meant to destroy 
sin, showing how " God makes the wrath of man 
to praise him." 

It is certain that the natural power of the crea- 
ture is from the efficiency of the Creator. Man 
makes use of this power to sin, and yet God does 
not lead him to sin. The wicked have the gift 
of speech, but God does not incite the wicked to 
utter a falsehood by that gift of speech. He gives 
to a person physical strength, and by that physical 
strength the person overcomes and kills six men, 
yet God did not move him to act in that murderous 
manner. When the Bible says that " God harden- 
ed Pharaoh's heart," it means that he withdrew his 
Spirit from the man, left him to act in his own w T ay, 
permitted him to fall by reason of the surrounding 
temptations — was, so to speak, the occasion of the 
hardening of his heart, while the cause was in the 
man himself. 

As it respects providential judgments, we cannot 
always point them out. God's government over 
men in the Christian dispensation is different from 
his government over men in the Jewish dispensa- 
tion. Temporal rewards and punishments are 



PROVIDENCE. 57 

clearly marked in Old-Testament history, but the 

same method is not ^o: at present. Because 

elve men were iestroyed by an explosion we 

eann:: say that they were more wicked than the 

men that were left uninjured. Some persons are 

punished and some afflicted, and :: say which is 

punishment and which the affliction is not 

ivs easy. If a murderer escapes justice, but is 

finally killed by an angry man, we see the hand 

of God in the judgment. The wicked, however. 

sometimes prosper^ while the righteous suffer. Na- 

e punished and rewarded in the present life. 

Retribution to the individual is seen chiefly in the 

future life. 



PAET II. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 

THE theory of evolution forces itself on our at- 
tention. The fact that this theory embraces 
all the kingdoms of life, presenting a principle 
which binds them together, is an idea of great 
comprehensiveness, and may easily captivate minds 
of a certain order. It is admitted that there has 
been progress throughout the entire realm of ani- 
mal existence. Looking simply at one of the sub- 
kingdoms, we can see an ascending march from the 
fish, reptile, bird, quadruped, to man. Although 
these orders are formed according to one type, that 
one type branches off from simplicity to manifold- 
ness, so that when the highest creature is reached 
we are amazed at the intricacy and finish that meet 
us. It is admitted also that new features have ap- 
peared in certain animals, and that a high degree 
of improvement has been attained. "Adaptability," 



OKIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 59 

" environment/' " natural selection/' " the struggle 
for existence/' have all been elements in the line 
of progress. It is not admitted, however, that the 
fish has become the, reptile, the reptile the bird, the 
bird the quadruped, and the quadruped the man. 

Darwin's " origin of species " is simply the vari- 
ation of species. We all believe in the varieties of 
sheep, cattle, horses, dogs, pigeons — fully believe 
in the varieties of the apple, peach, pear, grape, 
strawberry. " It does not necessarily follow, how- 
ever," says the duke of Argyll, " that because we 
admit the idea of the rock-dove and the turtle-dove 
and the ring-dove being all descended from one an- 
cestral pigeon, we are bound to accept the idea of 
the whale and the antelope and the monkey being 
all descended from some one primeval mammal." * 
If the development theory were true, w r e should see 
classes of monstrous beings bridging the chasm be- 
tween opposite species. Then, too, what is worthy 
of note, the first inhabitants of a group are not 
always the lowest. They are sometimes quite high, 
as if the chiefs led the way, while farther on the 
descendants sink in the scale. It is a fact also 
that different races have been swept from the earth 
at different times, thus interrupting the course of 
development. Then, again, in the Carboniferous 
period " feet with five toes appear in numerous 
species of reptilians of various grades. They are 
preceded by no other vertebrates than fishes, and 
* The Reign of Law, p. 264. 



60 THEOLOGY. 

these have numerous fin-rays instead of toes. There 
are no properly transitional forms, either fossil or 
recent. How were the five-fingered limbs acquired 
in this abrupt way? Why were they five rather 
than any other number ? Why, when once intro- 
duced, have they continued unchanged up to the 
present day ?" * 

Huge creatures appear in the ancient seas and on 
the ancient earth, all at once, which can be traced 
to no ancestors. Independent creations are in this 
way facts of geological history. If animal devel- 
opment has culminated in man, why should we 
still have such a variety of animal species, as if 
no development had ever taken place ? We should 
expect to see man reigning alone, the previous races 
being lost in him as their goal and grave. Qua- 
trefages affirms that " not a single case of transmu- 
tation of one species into another has been scien- 
tifically established." 

If man is evolved from the ape, the ape must 
possess the attributes of a man. We cannot evolve 
something out of nothing. The highest developed 
men have a brain of 94 inches ; the lowest, 77. A 
brain below 65 inches is idiotic. The anthropoid 
apes have a brain that ranges from 28 to 32 inches, 
only one-third the size of that of enlightened men. 
How is it possible to connect the highest ape with 
the lowest man, since the one has only 32 inches 
of brain while the other has 77 inches? They 

* Dawson, Facts and Fancies in Modern Science, p. 84 



ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAX. 61 

stand apart as truly as a tree on one side of a 
river and a flower on the other side. To evolve 
a human being from an ape is a physical impos- 
sibility. 

When we view man as he is, he is seen to stand 
at an infinite remove from the noblest animal. He 
alone of all creatures upon earth can make a tool, 
kindle a fire, cook food, exchange one thing for 
another. Then there is the marvelous fact of 
language, which connects the human being with 
God rather than with the beast. Man does not 
differ merely in degree from the animal, but he 
differs in kind. He is the being who can sin, the 
subject of moral government, the heir of immor- 
tality. He can perceive the beauty of nature, the 
beauty of truth, the beauty of holiness. He has 
the idea of cause, the idea of the infinite, the idea 
of God. He can repent, can worship and can 
prepare for heaven. He can seek for the highest 
good, can labor with reference to an ultimate end, 
can aim to realize an ideal, and can benefit others 
at the bidding of conscience. He can think of a 
happiness that he has never known, a purity that 
he has never seen and a perfection that he has never 
reached. Xo animal has characteristics like these. 
Separate from all, and above all, the human being 
stands. "And God said, Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness : and let them have domin- 
ion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 



62 THEOLOGY. 

and over every creeping thing that ereepeth upon 
the earth. So God created man in his image, in 
the image of God created he him; male and fe- 
male created he them." Gen. i. 26, 27. Surely, 
the appearance of man upon the earth is a miracle. 

In regard to the antiquity of man we will begin 
with the discoveries that have been made in the 
mud of the river Nile: "Ninety-five openings were 
made into this mud, which has been accumulating 
for ages, and of these one or two penetrated to the 
depth of sixty feet below the surface. One shaft 
was sunk near the statue of Rameses II., and a 
small vase of coarse unglazed pottery, a saucer of 
similar material and the hinder part of a small 
lion in baked clay were found at a depth of ten 
feet, the blade of a copper knife at thirteen, a ves- 
sel of brown unglazed pottery at fifteen ; fragments 
of burnt brick were brought up from a depth of 
thirty feet, and particles of baked clay from a 
depth of fifty-nine feet." 

The question now is, At what rate did the Nile 
mud increase ? Let the increase be estimated at 
six inches in a century. The baked clay that was 
brought up from a depth of fifty-nine feet would 
show, according to this, that men were engaged in 
making bricks about twelve thousand years ago. 
A piece of pottery has even been found at a depth 
of ninety feet. This would intimate that there 
were potters in Egypt eighteen thousand years ago. 
It has turned out, however, that this piece of pot- 



ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 63 

tery which delighted the skeptics was of Roman 
origin, and consequently it could only be traced 
back about two thousand years. This shows that 
all calculations with respect to the mud of the 
river Nile are of no value. 

Glance now at the flint discoveries. Flints have 
been found at Abbeville in Picardy which were evi- 
dently shaped by men. They Jay side by side with 
bones of extinct animals at depths ranging from 
twenty to thirty feet below the surface. " Flint 
implements have also been discovered in the caves 
of Gower, in a cavern near Wells in Somersetshire, 
at Icklingham in Suffolk, in the valley of the Ouse 
near Bedford, and at various other places in Eng- 
land." The inference is, that the men who shaped 
these flints lived during the same time as the ani- 
mals with whose bones the flints were found. This 
would carry us back to the Drift period. I can 
easily conceive that the flints might have been 
washed into their present position by the wild 
force of rushing water. The gravel and sand of 
the Drift formation may have been opened up, 
and the flints which were upon the surface may 
have sunk to the place where the extinct animals 
lay. 

We are told, however, that the remains of 
human beings have been found right beside the 
remains of the mastodon and the megalonyx, and 
so they must have lived at the same time. The 
bones that are found in an old English graveyard 



64 THEOLOGY. 

do not prove that persons were buried there at the 
same time merely because their bones now happen 
to be mingled together. We all know that the 
earth may sink at certain places, and it may be 
forced up at certain places, by some convulsion of 
nature, thus bringing together materials which at 
one time were quite apart. A rushing river may 
undermine the high banks on either side of it, and 
so a man that was buried not far from the surface, 
and a mastodon that was sepulchred lower down, 
may find themselves close together by this under- 
mining of the earth. 

It seems likely also that some of the gigantic 
animals now extinct really flourished during the 
first ages of human time, " We have no good 
evidence that the mammoth and cave-bear and 
woolly rhinoceros may not have lived up to the time 
of the historical Deluge." The Indians have a tra- 
dition of the appearance of an immense animal in 
the Ohio country. It is a fact also that "in the year 
1799 a mammoth in an entire state thawed out of 
an ice-bank near the mouth of a river in the north 
of Siberia." This would seem to intimate that 
the creature lived within the bounds of the mod- 
ern period. 

The Swiss lake-dwellings are also brought for- 
ward to prove the great antiquity of man. " Dur- 
ing the years 1853 and 1854 the water of the 
Lake of Zurich sank lower than it had been known 
to do for centuries," making it evident that people 



ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 65 

must have lived over the lake in buildings that 
rested on piles. By an examination of different 
lakes in Switzerland it was discovered that lake- 
dwellings had once been common. A number of 
articles of various kinds, showing the civilization 
of the people, were found — namely, " axes, hatchets, 
knives, lance-heads, swords, hammers, buttons, 
chains, fishing-tackle, shreds of flaxen cloth and 
round cakes of bread." It was noticed, however, 
that among one class of lake-dwellers the tools and 
weapons were made of stone, among another class 
they were made of bronze, while another class had 
them made of iron. This was supposed to point 
out three different stages of civilization, the people 
of the Stone Age being what is called pre-historic. 
The argument for the antiquity of man from this 
quarter is of no great value. Herodotus mentions 
people who lived in lake-dwellings. Persons live 
in the same style at present in the East Indies, in 
Africa and in South America. And as to the Stone 
Age, there is no evidence that that is so very ancient, 
neither is there any evidence that the whole human 
race were savages at that time. During the first 
Chaldsean monarchy stone implements were used, 
and yet the people had reached a high degree of 
civilization. " The Stone As;e exists to-day anions; 
certain savage tribes, and is contemporary with the 
steam-engine, the locomotive, the magnetic tele- 
graph, that are types and indications of man's high- 
est civilization in material things/' 



66 THEOLOGY. 

" The oldest men whose remains have been 
found," says Dr. Dawson, "are not of a different 
species from modern men, but, on the contrary, are 
nearly allied to the most widely-distributed modern 
race, while their great stature and physical power 
remind us of the Nephelim or giants of Genesis. 
The cranial capacity of these earliest men shows 
that they were as much lords of creation and as 
little allied to the brutes as their successors are. 
Further, when we place this fact in relation with 
the statement made by Haeckel, that according to 
the latest views of derivation lemurs or monkey- 
like animals of low type in the Eocene passed into 
apes in the Miocene, and these into men in the 
Post-Pliocene, the contradiction between this and 
the high type of the pre-historic skulls seems ab- 
solute, especially when we consider the unchanged 
character of the Turanian race from the Palseocos- 
mic age to the present day." * 

There is this point also, that the beastly theory 
of man's origin and the savage theory of man's 
primitive state lead to the view that the first men 
had no idea of God : they were fetich-worshipers. 
This is pure fancy. The facts of history go the 
other way. The earliest writings of the Old Test- 
tament present to us a rounded monotheism. The 
idea of one God as Creator, Ruler and Judge is an 
idea that has swept the whole of time. Polytheism 
is a corruption of the true doctrine. Even panthe- 

* The Bible and Science, Lect. v. 



INNOCENCE AND FALL OF MAN. 67 

isni is theism disfigured by false philosophy. The 
farther back we go in the religions of India, China 
and Egypt, the faith is more simple and the idea 
of one God is more clear. 

The philosophers of future ages will look back 
with astonishment at the popularity of evolution 
in the nineteenth century, wondering how scientific 
men were dazzled and deluded by it. The Bible 
statement, that Adam was " the son of God" has 
a grandeur about it, showing us at once the place 
he holds in the creation and his relationship to the 
Father of all. 



CHAPTER II. 

INNOCENCE AND FALL OF MAN. 

The first human being did not come into exist- 
ence as an infant. Continued life would have 
been impossible in such a state of helplessness. 
Adam was created as a man, and was supernatural- 
ly endowed with knowledge and speech. 

He was. made in the image of God. 

Constitutionally } this implies that his soul was im- 
material ; that it had the faculty of thought ; that 
it had within itself a class of universal ideas point- 
ing to cause, number, time, space, order, beauty, the 
infinite, right and wrong ; that it had an emotional 
nature, with feelings suitable to different objects and 



68 THEOLOGY. 

different relations; that it possessed freedom of will ; 
and that it was destined to an immortal life. In 
these respects it was like God. 

Then, morally, there was a divine image. 1. 
Adam was filled with the Spirit. We might infer 
this from the fact that Christ, "the second Adam," 
received the Spirit without measure. No being is 
capable of communion with God without the pres- 
ence of the supernatural. By reason of this the 
good live in a pure atmosphere. 2. The mind of 
Adam had a spiritual perception of truth, right- 
eousness and God. The understanding being flood- 
ed with light, there was a clear consciousness. 3. 
The heart was full of love. With this it was com- 
pletely centred on God and completely captivated 
with goodness. 4. The tvitt had simply one holy 
movement, so that it expressed the entire soul 
righteously, keeping the law with a freedom that 
was pure and with a purity that was free. 

How long our first parents lived in a state of 
innocence we know not. The time must have 
been short, because if it had been long habits of 
goodness would have been formed, and these would 
have kept them from falling. Certain writers have 
thought that inasmuch as Christ was in the wilder- 
ness forty days, so Adam and Eve were in the gar- 
den of Eden that time. 

The account in Genesis respecting our first pa- 
rents is history and not allegory. The temptation 
was not carried forward in the mind by Satan. 



INNOCENCE AND FALL OF MAX. 69 

His suggestions reached the mind through the 
medium of the serpent. Eve was found alone 
by the tempter. If Adam had been with her, it 
is possible that Satan would have failed. Great 
skill and cunning are manifested by the Evil One. 
He asks a preparatory question : " Yea, hath God 
said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the gar- 
den?" Gen. iii. 1. Keceiving the answer to this, 
he suggests a doubt : " Ye shall not surely die/' 
Gen. iii. 4. As much as to say, You may be 
mistaken in regard to what God means. To die 
is fearful. You must not suppose that a being 
like God would inflict such a penalty. It would 
be contrary to his benevolence. The woman doubt- 
less was arrested by this thought. She looked at 
it, turned it over : in this was her danger. If she 
had rejected it at once, all would have been well. 
When we argue with evil Ave are entering the trap. 
The tempter, gaining ground, says pleasantly, " God 
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your 
eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, know- 
ing good and evil." Gen. iii. 5. Here was a new 
view of the subject. Thinking that she may have 
been mistaken touching the divine command, she 
is the more ready to listen to the enticing words 
of Satan. Superior knowledge was to flash upon 
her mind, and she was to reach a divine standing. 
A sudden glare conies over her; there is a kind 
of intoxication. The fruit is good for food, pleas- 
ant to the eye, will make one wise, She is capti- 



70 THEOLOGY. 

vated; she yields; she takes the fruit; she dis- 
obeys God. 

The woman fell, then the man, and so sin entered 
the world. Spiritual, temporal and eternal death 
is now the lot of our first parents. Their state in 
sin is just the opposite of their state in holiness. 
1. The Holy Spirit has left them. 2. The mind is 
darkened. 3. God and goodness are lost. 4. The 
will is set for evil. Redemption, however, inter- 
venes, and so the guilty are not driven away into 
everlasting punishment. There is to be a human 
race, and this human race is to be placed under 
remedial influences during a specific time. 

What relation does Adam sustain to his posterity ? 
The relation is very close : " By one man sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin ; and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." 
Rom. v. 12. "Even Infidelity plays into the 
hands of Orthodoxy. For example, the new po- 
sitions on Heredity, asserting a common descent, 
laws of transmitted qualities and liabilities, charac- 
ter, etc., point directly to the great Christian doc- 
trine of Original Sin." * The race is a unit. Men 
are not like grains of sand. The fountain being 
impure, the streams are impure. Adam is the 
natural and federal head of the race. If he had 
remained holy, his descendants would have been 
holy ; but, breaking the divine law, we are involved 
in the consequences of his sin: "The judgment 

* Prof. Henry B. Smith, Lectures on Apologetics, p. 191. 



INNOCENCE AND FALL OF MAN. 71 

was by one to condemnation/' Rom. v. 16. Of 
course we are not personally guilty of Adam's sin. 
Infants who die are saved by Christ. The persons 
who endure the agonies of the second death are 
actual sinners. 

What is meant by original sin ? It is not the 
first sin which Adam committed, nor the first 
sin which any man commits, but it is the cor- 
rupt moral state in which we are born. " Original 
sin," remarks Calvin, " appears to be an hereditary 
pravity and corruption of our nature, diffused 
through all the parts of the soul, rendering us ob- 
noxious to the divine wrath, and producing in us 
those works which the Scripture calls i works of the 
flesh/ " * " This original sin, however," says Au- 
gustine, " is nothing substantial, but is a quality of 
the affections, and a vice." f That is, it is not like 
a poison injected into the soul ; it is rather a bad 
condition of the faculties. We are not born with 
sin in the same way that we are born with an in- 
tellect. We are like our fallen head in the follow- 
ing particulars : First, Ave are destitute of super- 
natural grace ; secondly, destitute of a spiritual 
mind ; thirdly, destitute of divine love, and inclined 
to self ; fourthly, destitute of a holy will, and in- 
clined to evil. 

While there is danger of making inherited sin 
less than it is, there is danger also of making it 

* Institutes^ vol. i. p. 229. 

f Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, p. 88. 



72 THEOLOGY. 

greater than it is. The fallen nature of which we 
are conscious is blacker than the fallen nature we 
received from Adam. We have added to it a num- 
ber of evil characteristics, a number of strictly 
personal characteristics. For instance, there is 
pleasure in our selfishness, approval of our way- 
wardness, and a choice which has made the heredi- 
tary sin to be our own. If we go back as far as 
memory can carry us, we find that our will has 
adopted the native depravity, so that at no time are 
we conscious of gazing upon the solitary evil which 
came to us from Adam. It is difficult, then, to 
state it just as it is. While original sin is bad 
enough, we have no right to make it worse than 
it is — no right to force back upon a corrupt nature 
our vicious habits, and then call the whole mass of 
evil by the name of native depravity. Then, again, 
to say that we are not accountable for our bad states 
of mind, because w r e inherit them, is not to the point. 
Our bad states of mind, as we now have them, are 
colored and shaped by the action of our will. They 
are a part of our character, and so their demerit is 
our demerit. 

In regard to the evidence of original sin — that is 
derived from Scripture and observation : " We are 
by nature the children of wrath " (Eph. ii. 3.) ; 
" Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin 
did my mother conceive me." (Ps. Ii. 5) ; " By one 
man's disobedience many were made sinners." Rom. 
v. 19. The fact that all men sin is evidence of a 



INNOCENCE AND FALL OF MAN. 73 

bad propensity. That all men begin to sin in a 
region back of consciousness and memory, is proof 
that evil is in us. It is frivolous to say that we 
sin by imitation. An infant will show temper and 
spite before it sees these characteristics in others. 
If character is formed by imitation, why have we 
not had a company of sinless men who acted like 
Christ? To say also that sin springs from the body 
is superficial. The angels sinned without a body. 
Sin in its essence belongs to mind. Enmity, pride 
and estrangement from God are states of the soul. 
That the body prompts to evil is admitted, but this 
is because the soul is godless. Even if we say that 
the lower passions and propensities are developed 
first, and by that means sin is introduced, we gain 
nothing, for that only proves that the governing 
power of the higher nature is lost. 

Certain theories of the origin of sin may here be 
glanced at. 

1. Sin is supposed to arise from the necessary 
limitation of the finite mind. There is thought 
to be a degree of imperfection in the fact that a 
being is finite, and that imperfection is viewed as 
sin or the cause of it. According to this, no intel- 
ligent creature can ever escape from sin, because no 
intelligent creature can cease from being finite : the 
Infinite only is holy. This is to destroy the nature 
of sin altogether, inasmuch as it is made necessary. 
It is out of the reach of the finite will ; or if the 
will is allowed to have a part in it, the will sins 



74 THEOLOGY. 

by natural imperfection. By this theory sin is 
taken out of the moral sphere entirely, and so its 
identity is gone. 

2. Sin is supposed to arise from contrast. It is 
said that light implies darkness, health sickness, 
truth error, and good evil. What would virtue 
be if vice did not oppose it ? Meekness, patience 
and self-denial presuppose evils that are opposed 
to these. Character would be tame and the mind 
weak if there were nothing to contend against. 
This view makes evil a necessary means of good, 
and, just so far as it does that, evil is made good. 
If humility is dependent upon pride, and love 
upon hatred, all moral distinctions are lost. Evil 
may furnish the opportunity for calling forth the 
noblest deeds of life, but it is not the cause of 
these. The energy of goodness is in goodness 
itself. 

3. Sin is traced back to free will. The Cate- 
chism says : " Our first parents, being left to the 
freedom of their own will, fell from the estate 
wherein they were created, by sinning against 
God." This is no explanation ; it is simply the 
statement of a fact. The question is, How could 
purity make choice of impurity? How could a 
perfectly holy being find a motive that would lead 
to sin ? Inasmuch as the free will was a good will, 
how could it make choice of evil ? The problem 
cannot be solved. It is a dread mystery. Sin is 
unreason, and so we can give no reasonable account 



SINFULNESS OF MAX. 75 

of its origin. We neither know how it began nor 

for what purpose it is here. 



CHAPTER III. 

SINFULNESS OF MAX. 

I. Sin a State of Mind. 
Sin is not confined to individual acts of the will 
— acts which begin one moment and end the next : 
it is a state of the soul. " To teach that there is no 
such thing as a sinful state or condition or potenti- 
ality is an error which has deeply infected much 
modern theology in America and England."* 
When we say that sin is a state, we mean that 
there is an evil disposition or preference. The 
ambitious man who seeks power and position has 
a state of mind that is ambitious. The worldling 
has a worldly disposition, which rules him. The 
person who is avaricious does not merely sin when 
he refuses to help the needy : his avaricious heart 
is the seat of the evil, and the refusals to act kind- 
ly are only expressions of that heart. The revenge- 
ful man has his revengeful state of mind. His 
words of wrath against the person who has injured 
him are only the wild fruit of a bad tree. The 
particles of malaria which destroy health are from 
a malarious source, and it is the source of the evil 

* Pope's Compendium of Christian Theology, vol. ii. p. S4. 



76 THEOLOGY. 

which demands attention. Our idea of sin will 
always be deficient until we gaze at the fountain 
of depravity itself. It is the "sin that dwelleth 
in us " which leads to specific acts of transgres- 
sion. 

1. The sinful state of mind is voluntary. The 
will has two movements — one relating to evil acts, 
and the other relating to the character which lies 
back of the acts. The will adopts the depravity 
of the heart, forms a channel for it, and makes it 
to flow along that channel. The evil will in this 
way has mastered the soul. The unconverted man 
is where he is by his own choice. He will not turn 
from sin or accept of salvation ; and this will-not 
shows that he has a voluntary habit of evil — shows 
that he is living in a state of sin. He says, " I do 
not want to adopt religion with all its self-denial ; 
I choose to have my own way." That not-wanting 
religion and the choosing to have one's own way is 
simply the will acting in opposition to goodness. 
Impenitence and unbelief are voluntary states of 
mind. 

2. As far as man is concerned apart from divine 
grace, the sinful state is permanent. Let one look 
into his soul at any moment and he will find the 
sinful state. Outward changes, outward moralities, 
have no effect upon the evil that reigns within. 
Whether one is awake or asleep, the state of sin is 
there. Place the unconverted man in heaven or in 
hell, and sin holds him — holds him for ever. And 



SINFULNESS OF MAX, 77 

yet it is of choice that the soul clings to it. There 

is no 

will. 



is nothing so fearful in all the universe as a bad 



II. The Nature of Six. 
Sin is not a mere mistake, nor an infirmity, nor 
a disease, nor a disorder. 

1. Sin is a departure from God. Holiness is 
impossible unless the soul is united to God, so 
that to sin is to forsake him. God is the good ; 
to leave that good is to apostatize. Estrangement 
is implied in the act of departing from God. The 
soul, not being easy in his presence, hastens away. 
The fall of man is the fall from God. 

2. Sin is lawlessness. The point here is not the 
transgression of law by a specific act. To find the 
essence of sin we have to view it internally. Sin 
is therefore a laidess state; it is inherent rebellion. 
This inward lawlessness presses itself into the out- 
ward sphere, and there takes shape in lawless 
deeds. 

3. Sin is divergence from the right. The person 
does not go in a straight line morally. We speak 
of an upright man : he does not incline to one side. 
A man of rectitude is a straight man. In turning 
aside from the right the idea is conveyed also of 
missing the mark. To whatever extent one fails 
of reaching the ultimate end of life, he sins. 
When character is perfect it is finished; the end 
is reached. 

6 



78 THEOLOGY. 

4. Sin is selfishness. It is not to be understood 
that all sin can be reduced to selfishness, or that 
fallen man never performs disinterested acts. The 
point is, that selfishness is a leading feature of sin ; 
it sums up the chief part of it, so that man may 
be spoken of as emphatically selfish. 

5. Sin is idolatry. Man takes the place of God. 
Let any sin be examined, and it will be found that 
the heart is given to it. The sin may appear small, 
yet, being accepted, God is rejected. That I have 
allowed myself to sin shows that I have chosen the 
finite instead of the Infinite. " What else is sin," 
says John Howe, "but an undue imitation of God? 
an exalting of the creature's will into a supremacy, 
and opposing it as such to the divine ? To sin is 
to take upon us as if we were supreme and that 
there were no Lord over us; 'tis to assume to 
ourselves a deity, as if we were under no law or 
rule." 

6. Sin is a lie. It is no wonder that Satan is 
called a "liar" and the "father" of lies. Sin is 
condensed in him in the form of falsehood. Moral 
evil from its nature is untruthful, and every person 
who sins is deceived. Sin is either viewed as a 
good or the means of good: in both cases there 
is deception. When once a man has forsaken God, 
who is truth itself, he most certainly lands himself 
in delusion. He is deluded about his character, 
about the great end of existence, about the way 
to obtain happiness. Hundreds of things are 



SINFULNESS OF MAN. 79 

right which he views to be wrong, and hundreds 
of things are wrong which he views to be right. 

7. Sin is spiritual indifference. There is no real 
interest in that which is holy, divine and eternal, 
but quite an interest in that which is sinful, human 
and time-bound. There is ever an aversion to that 
which is good. When we come to measure the 
amount of indifference in souls, there is no fixed 
quantity. Like sin in general, it has degrees, some 
persons being more indifferent than others, and a 
person himself being more indifferent at one time 
than he is at another. 

8. Sin is malice. Here it comes to a kind of per- 
fection. Haman (see book of Esther), who would 
destroy the whole Jewish people because one man 
would not bow to him, is the personification of 
malignity. Sin viewed as malice has more of 
evil in it than sin viewed as selfishness. When 
goodness and God are hated, the hatred is absolute 
moral death. 

The sin against the Holy Ghost may be ex- 
plained under this head. Why this sin should 
be unpardonable, while sin against the Father and 
the Son is pardonable, may seem strange. The 
reason, however, appears to be found in this : The 
Spirit has the infinite remedy in his hands, and he 
applies it to fallen souls. His work is the last 
work; so that if he is rejected salvation is gone 
for ever. The sin against the Holy Ghost is thus 
final; the soul by it is cut off from mercy; it is 



80 THEOLOGY. 

subject to eternal condemnation. " In order to 
make man capable of committing it, evil must 
most thoroughly have pervaded him by a process 
of intensifying and spiritualizing. Blasphemy of 
the Holy Ghost, as it is the highest, so also is it 
the most spiritual, sin."* 

The characteristics of the sin may be thus stated : 

a. The working of the Divine Spirit is opposed. 

b. He is opposed maliciously. e. The malicious 
opposition is carried so far as to reach the point of 
complete obduracy. The sin being pure malice, and 
fixed, it is Satanic. The fallen angels are shut out 
from mercy because of the complete malignity of 
their character, and the man who commits the sin 
against the Holy Ghost stands side by side with 
them. If a person is troubled lest he has commit- 
ted this fearful sin, he has not committed it. The 
hardened soul which u has done despite unto the 
Spirit of grace " has no anxiety of that kind. It 
is stupefied and deadened, being mastered by eter- 
nal sin. 

III. Entire Sinfulness of Man. 
" Every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart is only evil continually " (Gen. vi. 5) ; " There 
is none that doeth good, no, not one " (Rom. iii. 12); 
" They that are in the flesh cannot please God." 
Rom. viii. 8. When we say that men are totally 
depraved, we do not mean that they are as bad as 

* Miiller, Doct. of Sin, vol. ii. p. 478. 



SINFULNESS OF MAN. 81 

they can be, or that all are equally bad, but we 
mean that they are destitute of holiness and su- 
premely attached to sin. They may have the 
virtues of honesty, temperance, prudence, patriot- 
ism, pity, benevolence and family affection, but 
they do not have supreme love to God, nor make 
his glory their chief end; so, the governing deter- 
mination being wrong, all is wrong. Ungodliness 
reigns in the soul; the atmosphere is human; men 
have struck off into a cycle of their own; the 
leading powers of the mind are misdirected. There 
may be beautiful thoughts and sound thoughts re- 
lating to the Deity ; motions of soul that proclaim 
the need of him ; fears that arise because of him ; 
strange prayers that wander around seeking for 
him ; but he is not made the chief. In the divine 
sphere man is to be looked upon as a foreigner. 
He does not understand the language, has no ties 
of friendship; in loneliness he dwells. Man is 
even foreign to himself. The soul that has left 
and lost God has left and lost itself. The animat- 
ing principle of a true life is dead. We behold 
the vacant temple, the altar still standing, the 
lamps without light and without oil, the paintings 
partly visible on the wall ; but no worship ascends 
to Heaven. 

Objections to the above view : 

a. If I am entirely sinful, I have no conscience. 
It is surely plain enough that to know right and 
wrong does not make a man good. Conscience is 



82 THEOLOGY. 

not character. The ideas of heaven and of God 
do not make a man heavenly and godly. Satan 
has a comprehensive conscience, but he is the 
prince of evil. 

b. It is said that men prosper, showing that God 
is on their side ; consequently, they cannot be total- 
ly depraved. There is an inferior morality which 
belongs merely to this life, and which brings bless- 
ings upon those who practice it ; but, while it tends 
to hold together society, it does not satisfy the di- 
vine law, and does not end in spiritual and eternal 
good. 

c. Man has power to reform his character, and 
consequently he must possess righteousness. The 
reform is simply in the line of natural virtue ; it 
never makes the sinful heart holy ; and so the sup- 
posed righteousness is not that which is demanded 
by a perfect law. 

d. A person affirms that he is not conscious of 
being totally depraved; he therefore rejects such 
a view of human nature. It should be understood 
that sin darkens the mind, deludes the conscience, 
deadens the heart ; and, consequently, no man can 
form a right estimate of his own character. We must 
fall back upon the Bible description of human na- 
ture, as that is according to truth ; and by that we 
learn that "the carnal mind is enmity against God, 
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
be." Rom. viii. 7. 



FKEE AGENCY OF MAX. 83 

CHAPTER IV. 

FKEE AGENCY OF MAN. 

If man is a free agent, he is a moral agent ; and 
moral agency implies the existence of a conscience. 

1. Conscience is that faculty which perceives 
right and wrong; and this right and wrong are 
seen to characterize states of mind, motives, pur- 
poses and actions. 

2. Conscience has an imperative power, or the 
sense of obligation ; therefore it says by sovereign 
authority, "Be right and do right; you must 
neither be wrong nor do wrong." 

3. If our character and conduct are good, we 
are praised ; if bad, we are blamed. 

4. The guilty mind looks to the past, when sin 
was committed, and to the future, when punish- 
ment is to be inflicted. 

5. The same guilty mind trembles before God 
and wants a way of reconciliation. 

In each of these divisions conscience has a two- 
fold movement. There is the idea of right and 
wrong; the command to favor the right and to 
frown upon the wrong; the praise and the blame; 
the past sin and the future punishment; the fear of 
God and the need of reconciliation. 

It is evident that conscience looks to moral quali- 
ties, and not to happiness, utility or the mere con- 
sequences of human actions. The right is to be 



84 THEOLOGY. 

followed because it is right; and this right is to 
be understood as the expression of the character 
of God, and not as that which harmonizes with 
the eternal fitness of things apart from God. All 
right action, therefore, is theistic. 

We are to know also that no action is right, in 
the divine sense, unless it springs from a holy 
heart. A holy heart, however, must express itself 
in an outward act that is suitable in the circum- 
stances, for if it is not suitable it will be wrong. 
If a good intention were all that was necessary in 
order to make an action good, we might steal and 
kill if we only believed that these were for the glory 
of God. We can no more change wrong into right 
than we can change error into truth by mere sin- 
cerity. 

Natural ability necessarily belongs to free agency. 
There are persons who object to the phraseology 
"natural ability," believing that it is misleading 
in its influence. The thing intended, however, by 
the language is of great moment, lying as it does 
at the very basis of moral obligation. Natural 
ability simply points to the fact that man is cre- 
ated with all the faculties of an accountable being. 
He is capable of reasoning, remembering and per- 
ceiving first truths. He has an emotional nature 
also, and a will that can choose or refuse. Thus, 
the mind is a power working out in different direc- 
tions — a power that is natural. Hence we use the 
language " natural ability," this being the birthright 



FREE AGENCY OF MAN. 85 

of every soul. Take away any of the faculties, and 
man would not be accountable. If a person is blind 
and deaf, he is not to be blamed because he cannot 
see and hear. Whether my soul be little or large 
by nature, I can give account only according to what 
it is, or according to what it might be by faith- 
ful development. I shall not be punished because I 
do not foreknow, as I have not the natural power to 
foreknow. All this is reasonable. God demands 
of us constant obedience because we have all the 
faculties which are necessary to obedience. 

It is to be noted, however, that while fallen man 
has natural power, he has no inclination to use this 
for the attainment of holiness. He is consequently 
spoken of as in a state of moral inability. This does 
not mean that he lacks power to live what is called 
a moral life, for we may go to a great extent in that 
direction ; but it means that he lacks spirituality of 
mind, being " dead in trespasses and sins." God, 
angels and glorified saints are morally unable to sin, 
and so it is certain that they w T ill alw T ays be holy. 
Impenitent men and lost spirits are morally unable 
to be holy, and so it is certain that they will always 
sin. However great natural power may be, it never 
will break up moral inability. Man can rush into 
sin, but he cannot restore himself to holiness. Na- 
tions may reach a high degree of civilization by the 
simple working of natural power, and with a fair 
system of ethics they may have a fair morality ; but 
with all this they are still godless nations. 



86 THEOLOGY. 

We come now to free will. That we are volun- 
tary beings is not a theory ; it is a matter of con- 
sciousness. The race can never be made to believe 
that men lie and cheat with the same kind of neces- 
sity that winds blow and fire burns. Such neces- 
sity would make sin and holiness to be impossible. 
It gives men the right to plunge into all kinds of 
evil. A Reign of Terror is the result of such 
teaching. By free will is meant the power to choose. 
When I purpose to do anything whatsoever, I am 
free. When I refuse to do any wicked act, that 
refusal shows that I am free. The sun shines, the 
river flows to the ocean, and the law of gravitation 
works with great exactness, yet there is no choice in 
either, and so no freedom. 

Certain writers speak of the liberty of indiffer- 
ence : the will does not incline to one side or the 
other; it is in a state of equilibrium. This may 
do for a stone, but not for a man. If a person 
does not incline to good or evil, he is out of the 
reach of moral reckoning. I am inwardly free 
when I can put forth a choice, and outwardly 
free when I am not hindered from carrying out 
that choice. If I check my appetites, desires, 
griefs, and even my nervousness, I am exercising 
my will. If I hold myself to duty in spite of 
great suffering, I am showing a high degree of will. 
In the leading preferences of the soul, whether they 
relate to sin or holiness, to self or God, there is a 
movement of the will. This personal faculty holds 



FREE AGENCY OF MAN. 87 

sway over a larger empire than most men are aware 
of. It encircles the soul, and even works beneath 
the plane of consciousness. Its first choice is not 
known to any mortal ; it is thus in part pre- 
historic. As the mind is constantly thinking, so 
the will is constantly choosing. 

What is the relation of motives to the will ? The 
relation is fundamental. There are men who say 
that the will acts, at times, without a motive, and 
yet what value can we attach to an act that has 
neither aim nor reason? It must be very much 
like a ship that is simply floating on the ocean, 
having no port in view. 

In every act of the will there are two motives — 
one that centres in the object chosen, called an ob- 
jective motive ; and the other that centres in the 
soul that makes the choice, called a subjective 
motive. For instance, I decide to go to Europe, 
wanting greatly to see the different countries of 
that part of the world. The attractions of Europe 
form the objective motive, and the desire to witness 
these is the subjective motive. The subjective mo- 
tive may include the thoughts, feelings and tenden- 
cies which lead to volition ; in fact, it may include 
everything which prompts the will to go in a par- 
ticular direction. It is thus frequently complex 
instead of single. 

Each man is influenced by leading states and 
ultimate conclusions of the mind. I am walking 
along the road, for instance, on a certain day w T hen 



88 THEOLOGY. 

traveling is bad. I look from side to side to see 
which part is freest from water. Taking in the 
situation, I cross from point to point, and do this 
many times while on the way. If you were to 
ask me why I keep changing, I would answer that 
I keep changing because it is best to do so. The 
idea that it is best is the motive that prompts me. 
I attend church Sabbath after Sabbath You ask 
me why I am so particular. I am so particular 
because I want to obey God. The wanting to obey 
God is the motive that governs me. Sometimes a 
man chooses a course that is agreeable to him. The 
agreeable is the motive, and yet the course may be 
sinful. 

Whether it is the strongest motive which leads 
to volition is of no importance. It is enough that 
there is a motive which is the antecedent of choice, 
call it by what name we please. A motive that is 
weak to one man is strong to another, this depend- 
ing a good deal upon the mind and character of the 
individual. 

Is the efficient cause of action found in the mo- 
tive or in the will ? Strictly speaking, it is found 
in the person who wills. There are writers who 
talk about the will as if it were a kind of soul. 
They are fierce in upholding what they call the 
self-determining power of the will, when it is evi- 
dent that they mean the self-determining power of 
the mind ; the word self pointing to the creaturely 
spirit in its totality. The will may be connected 



FREE AGENCY OF MAN. 89 

with thought, as when I deliberate; and with feel- 
ing, as when I love ; but this does not prove that 
the will thinks and feels. The reason why the will 
acts in one way, and not in another, is found in the 
motive. Although efficiency may belong to the 
will, inasmuch as it is the centre of personality, 
yet it w^ill not put forth a specific act unless a 
specific motive directs it. The power which be- 
longs to a seed is found in its germ, but that power 
will not show itself in growth unless soil and moist- 
ure, air and heat, are supplied as conditions. The 
w T ill in the same way will not strike out in particu- 
lar directions unless the particular occasions are 
provided. 

Does the will possess the power of contrary 
choice? Certainly, a man may change his mind 
hundreds of times in a week, and he may do things 
on one day which on the day previous he did not 
intend to do. No one denies this. But, the mo- 
tives and circumstances remaining the same, can he 
put forth a different choice ? 

In one sense he cannot. How can the power go 
forth when no new reasons call for it ? The per- 
son cannot go east and west at the same time. As 
the will is not an independent faculty, but is con- 
ditioned by motives, he can only take the course 
which these point out; and as the motives are 
not foreign to him, but express his own mind, he 
cannot escape from himself. 

In another sense, however, we can say that man 



90 THEOLOGY. 

has the power of contrary choice. Why does he 
feel guilty when he does wrong if he does not 
have natural power to the contrary? This may 
be admitted in order to uphold man's account- 
ability to God ) yet the difficulty with the fallen 
soul is that it has neither heart nor will to use 
its natural power in the way of pure obedience. 
Man could do differently if he desired, but he does 
not desire. Of course the evil disposition is his 
sin, and will be his sin for ever. If God changes 
the evil disposition, there is a power of contrary 
choice which is holy : in that alone there is hope. 



CHAPTER V. 

IMMOETALITY OF MAN. 

1. The human conscience and the divine justice 
demand a future state of being. The soul looks 
into eternity and descries a doom which is to come 
upon the wicked. So long as there is a guilty con- 
science, so long will there be a belief in immortality. 
Men in all countries have been forced to think of 
an evil that would meet them after death. An 
argument that would quiet the cold intellect would 
not quiet the fiery conscience. The belief in im- 
mortality is very much like the belief in God — 
each is wellnigh universal, and each springs mainly 
out of our moral nature. The fallen soul even tells 



IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 91 

of coming bliss as well as coming woe. u As every 
one's conscience is, so in his heart he conceives hope 
or fear." 

Then, looking at the justice of God, what shall 
we do with those who have destroyed the innocent 
if there be no punishment hereafter? It never can 
be made right for millions of the good to suffer or 
die by the hands of others while the guilty are 
allowed to escape. There must be another state of 
existence where the righteous and the wicked shall 
be treated according to their character. 

2. The present life is not commensurate with the 
boundless aspirations of the soul ; therefore a future 
state is necessary. There is that in man which 
runs out to the infinite and the eternal, and which 
compels the soul to be dissatisfied with what it finds 
here. The beast is contented w 7 ith the satisfaction 
of its appetites, while the enlightened man is sick- 
ened with earthly good. The disappointed spirit 
therefore darts off and lives in the future, or it 
creates an ideal world into which it enters, hoping 
to find there the treasure which it needs. Assur- 
edly, the unquenchable desires of the soul point to 
an everlasting state of being, where objects better 
adapted to it will be found, and w 7 here the hungry 
nature of man shall beg no more in vain. 

3. The fitness of the mind for an eternal prog- 
ress is evidence for an eternal existence. The 
brute creature goes so far in development, and then 
stops ; but with man there is no limit to progress. 



92 _ THEOLOGY. 

However high may be our attainments during the 
sweep of ages, we can think of no point when the 
soul will come to a stand. A mind so obviously 
made for an infinite ascent was never designed to 
pass away when the clock of life strikes twelve. 
The last hour, rather, which consigns to the sep- 
ulchre the earthly brother of the soul, is but the 
signal of the morning watch of eternity, which 
bids the pure spirit begin its never-ending day of 
holy toil. " Would an infinitely wise Being give 
us talents that are not to be exerted? — capacities 
that are never to be gratified ? How can we find 
that wisdom which shines through all his works in 
the formation of man without looking on this 
w T orld as only a nursery for the next, and believing 
that the several generations of rational creatures 
which rise up and disappear in such quick succes- 
sions are only to receive their first rudiments of ex- 
istence here, and afterward to be transplanted into 
a more friendly climate, where they may spread 
and flourish to all eternity ?" * 

4. The training of man individually and col- 
lectively points to a future state. The fact that a 
sinful race are allowed to live upon this earth would 
seem to intimate that the present economy is one of 
probation, and that during the continuance of it 
the design is that man should regain his former 
state of purity, after which he enters upon another 
scene of existence in harmony with his perfected 
* Spectator, No. 111. 



IMMORTALITY OF MAX. 93 

condition. Wherever we look, we find a system 
of machinery at work in exact accordance with this 
idea. There is a remedy for sin, and along with 
this trials and temptations, showing that the world 
is a reformatory school. Let any one now cast his 
mind down the centuries of coming time and see 
the human family lifted up on a high platform 
of intelligence and piety, — what will be the con- 
clusion from this? Not surely that it will sink 
into nothingness, but rather this, that, having gone 
so high, it is now prepared to go still higher. The 
ultimate design of a probationary course hav- 
ing answered its purpose, it passes away, while 
eternity becomes the possession of immortal men. 
To suppose that a world of beings moving onward 
till a certain goal is reached is then snuffed out of 
existence is a thought more like madness than any- 
thing else. 

5. The adaptedness of the soul to behold the 
manifestations of God is a proof of its immortality. 
It is a true thought of Martensen when he says that 
" all questions concerning human immortality may 
be traced back to our idea of God. The true con- 
ception of man is, that he is the organ of revela- 
tion for the Godhead. '- * Man is made in the di- 
vine image, and so he can see and admire the won- 
drous revelations of the Divine Being. God must, 
from the nature of the case, manifest himself for 
ever, for the time will never come when the lnfi- 
* Christian Dogmatics, p. 452. 



94 THEOLOGY. 

nite will be fully manifested ; and so the soul must 
be there to behold this endless manifestation. The 
soul must be there also, for the time will never 
come when a limited being shall take in the Un- 
limited. The more extended the manifestations of 
God during some remote age of eternity, the more 
extended must the soul be in order to grasp them. 
Man is for God, while God is for man. 

These reasonings with reference to the immor- 
tality of the soul may be viewed as aids to faith, 
but not as the ground of it. Scripture makes all 
certain. Immortality is there stated as a fact, and 
not as a probability. " Then shall the dust return 
to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return 
unto God who gave it." Eccles. xii. 7. The material 
part of man goes back to the earth : the immaterial 
part goes back to God to be judged. "Enoch was 
translated, that he should not see death." Heb. xi. 
5. In him were linked together time and eternity. 
If men were skeptical in his days touching the 
immortal state, he was divinely honored as the 
visible proof of it. We read also that Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob found a place in the kingdom of 
heaven, thus teaching us that these men are not 
only residents of eternity, but that they are saved. 
Then, too, Moses and Elias appeared on the mount 
where Christ was transfigured, proclaiming by their 
presence the fact of immortality. In the eleventh 
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a 
list of heroic saints, and they are spoken of as " a 



IMMORTALITY OF MAX. 95 

great cloud of witnesses," as if from the heights of 
glory they were watching us in our toil. The rich 
man who died and was buried is represented as in 
a state of torment, making it evident that he was 
an inhabitant of the future world. Christ seemed 
to embody in himself the doctrine of the other life, 
for he entered it through the gates of death, and 
then returned to us from it. And, as if this were 
not sufficient, he ascended in sight of his disciples 
to the realms of God, there to greet his people when 
they enter his kingdom. We know, still further, 
that both good and bad are to be raised at the last 
day, and that the good are to be eternally happy 
and the bad eternally miserable, thus making it 
certain that each man, body and soul, is to exist 
as such for ever. 

There is nothing of " conditional immortality" 
in all this. If man is not naturally immortal, why 
should God raise the wicked from nothingness at 
the last day and then send them back again to 
nothingness ? The fact that the wicked are raised 
and made to suffer eternal punishment is proof that 
they are immortal. The righteous and the wicked 
differ as to character, but not as to endlessness. 
Salvation is conditional, but immortality is not. 
"This is eternal life, that they might know thee 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
hast sent." John xvii. 3. " The word ' life/ 
when used of the soul of man, means not only 
conscious being, but a normal state of being in 



96 THEOLOGY. 

the likeness, fellowship and enjoyment of God. 
In like manner the word 'death/ when spoken 
of the soul, means alienation or separation from 
God • and when that separation is final it is eter- 
nal death. This is so plain that it never has been 
doubted, except for the purpose of supporting the 
doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked."* 



CHAPTER VI. 

MAN'S NEED OF A DIVINE HELPER. 

It would seem as if the fallen race of men were 
feeling round for some kind of a divinity whom 
they cannot name. Having no clear conception of 
what he is, they are groping about in the dark, if 
perchance they may find him. There is a peculiar 
thought wandering through the mind, and that pe- 
culiar thought is trying to express the name of the 
Great Unknown ; yet it cannot do it. The whole 
is like a half-remembered dream, part of which we 
can tell, while the other part is lost. If we were 
to see a man in the midst of a desert, and he were 
moving round and round, not knowing what he 
was doing, we should be astonished. But, ap- 
proaching him, and learning that he has lost his 
w T ay and also his reason, he having had no food or 
water for many days, we now perceive that the 

* Dr. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. iii. p. 874. 



NEED OF REDEMPTION. 97 

man was really trying to find his way out of the 
desert, and, although he was moving round and 
round, that only showed that something was wrong 
about his mind, but it did not show that the con- 
ception of having lost his way was gone from him : 
his confused efforts told of the dim thought that 
still was there to guide him. It is much in the 
same way that we explain the strange working of 
the soul as it reaches after the Divine One. Seneca 
mentions an idiot girl who had become blind, but 
who did not know that she was blind. She knew 
that darkness was around her, but supposed that 
light was elsewhere. That idiot girl makes us 
think of mankind. 

There is evidently a tendency in all souls that is 
divine. This tendency is not the result of knowl- 
edge, feeling or volition : it is back of these. The 
tendency belongs to the nature of mind, and* is 
God-created. It can no more be destroyed than 
the instinct of happiness or the convictions of right 
and wrong. Men may plunge into all kinds of 
wickedness, and even deny the existence of God, 
but they cannot destroy the Godward tendency 
of the soul. All nations have had their heroes, 
rulers, reformers and wise men, about whom they 
gathered and through whom they hoped to find de- 
liverance ; but after a season they were found to be 
wanting, and the cry was for some higher and bet- 
ter one to come who would be able to set things 
right. However intensely human the race may be, 



98 THEOLOGY. 

the feeling at last is, that only one with divine 
powers can meet their case. 

There is the fact of loss, which throws out inti- 
mations of the divine. Schubert, in his History of 
the Human SouL tells us of a " Hungarian ladv of 
high rank who, for the preservation of her beau- 
tiful skin, washed herself in the blood of young 
maidens murdered by her own hand." * That 
woman's loss was far greater than her all-absorb- 
ing selfhood. It is not that souls are deeply sen- 
sible of their loss, but it is that the loss does affect 
the mind, suggesting that something valuable has 
dropped out of it, and that only by the possession 
of some noble treasure shall it ever feel well. 
There is no communion with the Supreme Excel- 
lence. Hence the ereaturely spirit is uneasy in the 
midst of its loneliness, wishing for some day to 
come that has no cloud and for some joy to smile 
that has no grief. The Great Inhabitant has left 
his palace. His kingly voice is heard no more. 
No princely table is spread. The royal guests ap- 
pear not. The halls of splendor are empty. The 
once beautiful walls are soiled. The divine pict- 
ures are defaced. The golden timepiece made in 
heaven is out of order. The precious stones have 
been sold and the money wasted. The royal gar- 
dens are covered with weeds; only a few flowers 
are seen. The fountains that used to flow are now 
dry. The river of life that once was near has 
* Quoted in Ackermann's Christian Element in Plato, p. 197. 



NEED OF REDEMPTION. 99 

changed its course. In the place where the chapel 
of the King stood is now " an altar to the Unknown 
God." 

There is the feeling of unrest, as if the soul were 
praying for a Divine Helper. No circumstances 
bring peace, no truth quiets the mind. The soul 
seems to be lamenting its fate, trying also to com- 
municate with another soul that forms a part of 
itself — telling that other soul that sin ends in death. 
There seems to be a voluntary soul that is proud, 
hateful and self-willed, and back of it an involun- 
tary soul that suffers, fears and wishes for good, 
heading in its own way toward the Eternal Light, 
and looking through the mists of the dawn for the 
Coming One. This involuntary soul with its pant- 
ings is often wiser than the voluntary one with its 
understanding. Indeed, if men would but listen 
to this deep-hidden soul with its infinite yearnings, 
they would soon find the Deliverer of mankind. 
It seems to be standing at the very gates of life, 
trying to force them open, that it may catch a 
glimpse of the mercy of God. Man is in want, 
and so he is struck with a great discontent. From 
very weariness he sins, not seeming to know that 
the weariness is the result of sin. He is displeased 
with himself, and that makes it plain that there is 
a something with which he would be pleased if 
once he could find it. " Men think that they re- 
gret the past, when they are but longing for the 
future." The sharp cry for unlimited good starts 



100 THEOLOGY. 

an opposite feeling, and that feeling seizes a good 
that has no value. The great want of the soul 
finding no way by which it can be satisfied is broken 
up into a thousand little wants ; and these, fastening 
on to a thousand little objects, try in that way to fill 
the rankling void within. 

There stand around each human soul beautiful 
ideals, prompting that soul to seek after all excellent 
things. These ideals differ in number and quality 
in varied minds. These are not designed to be a 
good in themselves, but rather the means which 
may lead to the highest good. Many imaginative 
persons do not view them in this way. They 
rather fix their chief attention on them. They 
turn them into idols. They worship them. As 
these ideals seem to be reflections of God, and not 
God himself, fallen men are better pleased with 
them than with him. Hence we find cultivated 
persons exhausting their energies upon art, making 
it as beautiful as they can, that the beauty may 
charm every beholder. Then there are men who 
tell us that they are seeking after truth for its own 
sake ; and when they find it they make it their 
god. " Ideals are among us, like the crown dia- 
monds, of the highest value. It is thought almost 
everywhere, in all seriousness, that men cannot do 
better than manufacture ideals." The difficulty, 
however, is, that " idealists think the good, but they 
have and do it not. Their thought stands in a mel- 
ancholy disproportion to their being and will ; it 



NEED OF REDEMPTION. 101 

stretches up heavenward, it hovers around above 
the stars, while the rest of the man lies stunted on 
the earth, and, from its incompleteness and weak- 
ness, is unable to accomplish its purpose." * In 
the religious sphere splendid ideals are splendid 
failures. What bright ideal can ever lead to the 
creation of a pure heart and a pure life? The 
finest ideal cannot heal the schism of the soul or 
give to a man the blessedness which he craves. 
The sinful mind is rather exasperated by its visions 
of eternal goodness. The feeling of need is deep- 
ened, but not satisfied. Man feels more thirsty, 
but there is no water of life. 

Despair hovers over the sin-stricken spirit. Even 
the great moralists are hopeless. Cold, dead works 
cannot warm the soul into life. Seneca cries out, 
" No man is able to clear himself; let some one 
give him a hand, let some one lead him out." 
What a sad wail that is ! It seems to be a cry for 
the Restorer of human nature to come, and to come 
quickly. Ethics and art, philosophy and religious 
rites, cannot sweep away depravity and guilt. Even 
the pleasant doctrine of hope ends in despair. It 
would seem as if every human method had been 
tried : failure is stamped upon each. Souls are 
sad, burdened, lost; denial is useless. " The old 
poets, in general, are full of lamentation, and Gre- 
cian mythology could not conceal its internal stamp 
of a certain amount of tragic despair. " " No na- 
* Ackermann's Christian Element in Plato, pp. 76, 80, 



102 THEOLOGY. 

tion felt more than the Greeks the unhappiness 
arising from the weakness and sin of the natural 
man. An undertone of lamentation runs through 
the external splendor and joy of Grecian life from 
its beginning to its close. In every mouth we find 
the same sad cry, It were better never to have been 
born ; and its fellow, Or to die as soon as possible."* 
Man's experience shows how urgent is the neces- 

sitv for a Redeemer. God must intervene. The 

*> 

Divine Helper has come. Souls are saved by his 
power. " If any one wants to be a philosopher, he 
must go to philosophers ; to be a poet, he must go 
to poets ; to be a painter, he must go to painters ; 
but if any one w T ants to be a Christian, he must 
go to Christ." 

* Luthardt, Fundamental Truths, p. 395. 



PAET III. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON AND 
WORK OF THE MEDIATOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DIVINE-HUMAN MEDIATOR. 

ALL God's works flow from a holy tendency of 
his nature. In all his acts he has pleasure. 
Love was always in the heart of the Eternal Word, 
constraining him to become man. Only one Word 
has God uttered, but this one Word reveals God, 
contains all things and fills eternity. 

"The first steps of Jehovah Elohim, who seeks 
man at eventide, are the first steps of God the Re- 
deemer toward the goal of incarnation." " He is 
from this time the centre of humanity, which 
crushes the head of the serpent. The faith of the 
fathers derived from this centre of the promise and 
of the Promised One the strength of hope and of 
sanctification in the struggle with the power of 
evil." * The Old-Testament appearances of God 
in a human form were preludes of the incarna- 

*Delitzsch, Old-Test. Hist, of Redemption, p. 25. 

103 



104 THEOLOGY. 

tion, and the two rolls of promise and prophecy 
terminate in " the second man, the Lord from 
heaven." Abraham saw his day and was glad. 
He is the great Prophet who was to appear, the 
Messiah and Son of God. He is the Servant of 
Jehovah, the universal King ; yea, the " Priest 
upon his throne." He is the Lord who is higher 
than David ; the One who " is to be cut off, but 
not for himself;" the One who " makes reconcilia- 
tion for iniquity." He is the Angel of Jehovah 
and of the covenant ; the Lord who is to come 
suddenly to his temple. " Unto us a child is born, 
unto us a Son is given : and the government shall 
be upon his shoulders : and his name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The ever- 
lasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isa. ix. 6. 
The Old-Testament is really " the book of the 
generation of Jesus Christ." 

The want of the race has been to find a way by 
which the divine could meet the human. If such 
a way could be found, man would be encouraged 
to approach the Being he has offended. In the 
Brahmanic system Vishnu is addressed by the 
gods in these words: "Take upon you a human 
body, and draw out this thorn from the world ; 
for none but you, among the inhabitants of heaven, 
can destroy this sinner."* In this we have a hint 
of the incarnation as far as pantheism could give it 
to us. " Christianity gives expression to that which 
* Pressense, Religions before Christ, p. 60. 



THE GOD-MAN. 105 

all religions seek; it embraces within itself what- 
ever is true in heathenism and Judaism; but not 
less that the idea of the God-man, which so pecu- 
liarly characterizes Christianity, has not emerged 
from without Christianity, but wholly from within 
it. To Christianity this idea is original and essen- 
tial. The beginning was the fact, and the fact gave 
the knowledge." * 

That Christ was a man is not questioned. He 
was born of a woman ; he increased in w T isdom ; 
he prayed ; he was tempted ; his soul was exceed- 
ing sorrowful ; he cried out in agony because God 
had forsaken him. He must be God, however, as 
well as man, to be of any use to us. 

I. Christ seen to be Divine from his Names, 
Attributes and Works, and the Worship 
paid to Him. 

1. Divine names are applied to Christ: "In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God ; " "And the Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we be- 
held his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten 
of the Father, full of grace and truth." John i. 1, 
14. Here is a person who was with God in the 
past eternity, and at the same time is God : this 
person also assumes human nature. He is thus 
both God and man. In the Epistle to the Romans 
we have these w r ords : u Of whom as concerning the 
*Dorner, Doct. of the Person of Christ, vol. i. p. 45. 



106 THEOLOGY. 

flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for 
ever." Rom. ix. 5. That is, as to his lower nature 
he is human, but as to his higher nature he is di- 
vine. Then this explicit sentence : " Unto the Son 
he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and 
ever." Heb. i. 8. 

2. Christ possesses divine attributes : " Before 
Abraham was, I am." John viii. 58. Not before 
Abraham was I was, although that would show 
pre-existence. He uses the present tense, intimat- 
ing that with him there is an eternal now. No 
wonder the Jews attempted to kill him, because 
he had claimed equality with God. He is om- 
nipotent : " I have power to lay down my life, and 
I have power to take it again." John x. 18. The 
" I " can refer neither to the body nor to the soul : 
it must therefore refer to the divine nature of Christ. 
He is omniscient : " Lord, thou knowest all things ; 
thou knowest that I love thee." John xxi. 19. He 
is unchangeable : " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday 
and to day and for ever." Heb. xiii. 8. We never 
speak of any finite being in that way. He is omni- 
present : " Where two or three are gathered togeth- 
er in my name, there am I in the midst of them " 
(Matt, xviii. 20) ; " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." Matt, xxviii. 20. It 
is not possible for any human leader to be pres- 
ent with his scattered followers everywhere and 
always. 

3. Christ performed divine works. We think 



THE GOD-MAN. 107 

of his miracles, but it is not so much his miracles 
which show divinity as it is the manner in which 
he performed them. The apostles say when they 
would cure a lame man, " In the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." Acts. iii. 6. 
But when the Saviour would cure one in like cir- 
cumstances his language is, "Arise, and take up thy 
couch, and go unto thine house." Luke v. 24. Here 
all is direct ; he had the source of power in himself, 
while the apostles were merely the medium through 
which the power showed itself. Christ will also 
raise the dead and judge the world — acts which 
only God can perform. 

4. Christ is an object of worship: "All men 
should honor the Son, even as they honor the Fa- 
ther" (John v. 23); "And when he bringeth in 
the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let 
all the angels of God worship him." (Heb. i. 6); 
"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many 
angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and 
the elders : and the number of them was ten thou- 
sand times ten thousand, and thousands of thou- 
sands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, 
and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing." Rev. v. 11, 12. 

II. Do not the Words, " Son of Man," as 

used by Christ, imply Divinity? 
Some writers think that the language simply 



108 THEOLOGY. 

means that Christ was the ideal man. No doubt 
he was the Man of men, the archetypal Man, 
brighter than the brightest of the sons of men. 
But this does not furnish us with the striking ele- 
ment of the phrase. When Christ calls himself 
" the Son of man/' he means to teach us that he 
was in a state of humiliation. He had left a con- 
dition that was very high for one that was very 
low. He did not merely become a man, but he 
took the servant state of man. Hence the language, 
"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air 
have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to 
lay his head" (Matt. viii. 20) ; " The Son of man 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
and to give his life a ransom for many." Matt. xx. 
28. The fact of abasement, as seen in those verses, 
is seen also in this passage : " Being found in fash- 
ion as a man, he humbled himself, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 
Phil. ii. 8. We are not to understand that the 
humiliation of Christ was the act of his human 
nature, as if from princely manhood he had plunged 
into want, because that would convey the idea that 
he had existed as man before he came to this earth. 
He was always in a low condition here. Hence it 
was the Son of God who became the Son of man. 

There is divinity in the language when once we 
reach the heart of it. We have this peculiar sen- 
tence : "The Son of man which is in heaven." 
John iii. 13. Certainly, the human nature of 



THE GOD-MAN. 109 

Christ could not be in heaven and on earth at the 
same time. But as the human nature was neces- 
sarily connected with the divine in the one person- 
ality, the God-man could speak of himself as in 
heaven and on earth at the same time. We can 
say that Christ is everywhere, but we cannot say 
that the human soul and body of Christ are every- 
where. When God became man, man did not be- 
come God, as that would make two divine Beings. 
Besides, if the human nature had really become 
divine, there is no human nature of Christ in ex- 
istence. Passing this thought aside, then, we have 
the w r ords, " The Son of man hath power on earth 
to forgive sins." Mark ii. 10. This appeared to 
the Jews as claiming divinity ; for they say, " Who 
can forgive sins but God only ?" " The Son of 
man is Lord also of the sabbath." Mark ii. 28. 
Not even a sinless man would venture to speak in 
that way. " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man 
sitting on the right hand of pow T er, and coming in 
the clouds of heaven." Matt. xxvi. 64. This state- 
ment created such a commotion that " the high priest 
rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy." 
Matt. xxvi. 65. Yes : Christ either blasphemed or 
he is God. He once asked his disciples, " Whom 
do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" "Si- 
mon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." Matt. xvi. 13, 16. 
This answer was approved. Thus we have a di- 
vine-human Redeemer. 

8 



110 THEOLOGY. 

We meet now this question : Did any change 
take place in the divine nature when the Son of 
God became the Son of man ? No. God may be 
spoken of as being in the material universe as well 
as in every human being, and yet there is no change 
because he is thus connected with matter and man. 
When it is said that Christ " made himself of no 
reputation," or emptied himself, that does not imply 
any change in the nature of God. It simply shows 
the greatness of Christ's condescension. If the 
Son of God when upon earth w r as emptied of his 
divine nature, he was nothing but a man, and as 
such he could do nothing to save man. God can 
do many things, but surely he cannot divest him- 
self of his deity. He may not use all his power 
in given circumstances — in fact, he never will use 
all his power — but that is a different thing from 
setting aside his attributes. To make Christ a man 
with the divine left out is to make him an abnor- 
mal being. The personality of the Redeemer cen- 
tres in the divine, and not in the human, so that we 
cannot even conceive of the man Christ Jesus apart 
from the divine. The Son of God did not join 
himself to a man, as that would give us two persons, 
but he assumed our nature ; hence we speak of him 
as a divine-human person. Whatever of mystery is 
connected with this view, it is the mystery of tran- 
scendent truth. God in himself and in his rela- 
tion to the universe is no less mysterious. 

Individuals may use the language, "God in 



THE GOD-MAN. Ill 

Christ," and mean no more than that Christ was a 
man filled with God. They may say that Jesus was 
a divine man — that is, he possessed higher divine 
gifts than all other men — but they do not believe in 
the strict deity of Christ. Persons may even speak 
of the " incarnate God," and yet mean simply that 
God dwells in every human being. This may be 
intended to teach a form of divine immanence — 
God in all men and all men in God — or it may be 
nothing but pantheism. Strauss says : " Humanity 
is the union of the two natures — God become man, 
the Infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the 
finite spirit remembering its infinitude." " It is 
Humanity that dies, rises and ascends to heaven." * 
Here there is no incarnation of the second person 
of the Godhead : it is the human race in its totality 
that is incarnate. There is an old exploded theory 
which has been trying again to force itself into 
notice — namely, this : that God entered a human body. 
In such a case there is no man at all, for a body 
without a soul is not a man. There is a theophany, 
but nothing more. The theory gives us the start- 
ling thought that "God died." Those who adopt 
this view may be emphatic in their belief of the 
divinity of Christ. The belief, however, simply 
centres in God as the one who inhabited a human 
body. There was no real person of Christ. The 
doctrine is deistic. 

Many Christians are at a loss to understand how 
* Life of Jesus, vol. ii. p. 895. 



112 THEOLOGY. 

the Saviour could be tempted. I will therefore add 
a few thoughts touching that point. 

Adam, though holy, was tempted. Christ, though 
holy, can be tempted also. Remember that Christ 
was a man as well as God. a. There is reason to 
think that he was tempted at the beginning of his 
moral history. At that beginning there were no 
moral habits to hold him. The spiritual principle, 
therefore, was not as powerful as it was afterward. 
At the initial point, then, he was tested. It was 
passed safely, b. Christ had an aesthetic nature, 
and so he was influenced by scenes of beauty and 
grandeur. As his mission was redemptive, he must 
not allow these secondary matters to carry him 
away. In a lower sphere Howard was so much 
occupied in visiting dungeons that he had no time 
to regale his taste with the splendors of nature and 
art, c. As Christ had a body that was weak, he 
could be tempted to spend too much time in rest 
and recreation. Even sleep, though necessary, 
might be carried to an extreme, d. Christ was 
tempted by hunger. He could feed five thousand, 
but he must not satisfy his own cravings. A vast 
amount of sin has arisen from the bodily appetites. 
Christ controlled his. e. The Redeemer had divine 
power, but that must not be used to make his life 
more pleasant. As man's Saviour his position was 
that of want, self-denial and dependence, and so he 
must hold himself to these. /. It was a trial to 
Christ to live in the midst of so much wickedness. 



THE ATONEMENT. 113 

His absolutely pure nature shrank from surrounding 
evil. It would seem as if he would long to be away. 
g. Christ gained but little sympathy, and that was 
a trial. He was even viewed as an impostor. His 
professed friends did not understand him. At the 
trying hour they left him. h. Christ was tempted 
by the greatness of his sufferings. He could not 
love pain ; no one can love it. His human nature 
was torn to the utmost limit of endurance. The 
intensity of his agony we cannot measure. If he 
had given way all would have been lost. 

Thus, Christ was tempted at many points and in 
many ways. What we are accustomed to call temp- 
tations are trifles in comparison with his. The first 
man fell through a single movement of Satanic in- 
fluence : the second man fell not, though that Sa- 
tanic influence was thrown over him during the 
great crises of his life. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE ATONEMENT OF THE MEDIATOR 

As the covenant of works made with Adam was 
broken, the , race became a race of sinners, so that 
not one of the human family can now be saved by 
the law. A covenant of redemption, however, was 
formed between the Father and the Son. In this 
the Son agreed to be the surety of a select people 



114 THEOLOGY. 

given to him by the Father, he being willing to 
assume human nature, keep the law and suffer, so 
as to deliver these persons from sin and misery. 
Evidence of such a redemptive contract is found 
in these passages : " I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do " (John iv. 34) ; " This is 
the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all 
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up again at the last day " (John vi. 
39) ; " I pray not for the world, but for them which 
thou hast given me." John xvii. 9. There is now 
the covenant of grace. Under this covenant sal- 
vation is offered by God to men upon the condi- 
tion of faith ; showing that we are living under 
a gracious economy. 

The idea of atonement is rooted in human nature, 
and the idea of propitiatory sacrifice has taken a 
firm hold of the race. Thus, when the ancient 
Egyptians were about to sacrifice the animal which 
had been selected, Herodotus tells us that "the 
priests lead the victim, marked with their signet, 
to the altar, and, setting the wood alight, pour a 
libation of wine upon the altar in front of the 
victim, and at the same time invoke the god. 
Then they slay the animal, and, cutting off his 
head, proceed to flay the body. Next they take 
the head and heap imprecations on it. The im- 
precation is to this effect : They pray that if any 
evil is impending either over those who sacrifice 
or over universal Egypt, it may be made to fall 



THE ATONEMENT. 115 

upon that head."* "Well known are the heca- 
tombs of bulls, lambs and goats (offered by the 
Greeks) in Homer. Pindar says it is a Grecian 
custom to sacrifice all, up to a hundred." " The 
animal was struck with the axe, and its throat cut 
with the knife. The blood was received into a 
basin, and in part poured around upon the altar, 
a part sprinkled upon those standing by, that they 
might be absolved from their sins." f The entire 
sacrificial system of the world is an attempt to 
utter the word Redeemer. 

On the part of fallen man the following things 
are certain : 1. The soul can neither blot out its 
sin nor destroy the memory of it. 2. It cannot 
make amends for the past by any faithfulness in 
the future. 3. It cannot sweep away the terrors 
of eternity. 4. It cannot harmonize itself with 
infinite Purity. 5. It knows that repentance can- 
not annihilate sin and guilt. 6. It knows also 
that mere pardon cannot quiet the troubled con- 
science. 7. It has no power to make itself holy 
and happy. 8. It therefore is compelled to look 
to a divine atonement, that thus the law may be 
satisfied, God reconciled, the conscience quieted 
and the heart cleansed. 

As sin is demerit, it demands punishment ; and 
as justice has eternal claims, it must have punish- 
ment or its equivalent. To be just or not just is 

* Kawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 59. 
t Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. i. pp. 399, 401. 



116 THEOLOGY. 

not a matter of choice. Moral distinctions cannot 
be set aside in that way. No amount of power 
can make it right to go contrary to justice. 

Men have formed their ideas of an atonement 
according as they have looked at God as a Father, 
Governor or Judge. With the fatherhood of God 
an atonement is not deemed necessary, as moral 
beings are viewed as members of a family, the 
offenders of which need chastisement and pardon, 
but nothing more. With God as the Governor of 
the universe an atonement has been shaped to sus- 
tain the public good and to satisfy the general 
justice of the Ruler, but destitute of any retribu- 
tive quality. With God as a Judge the atonement 
has been made strictly judicial. There are phases 
of the atonement which honor all these relations 
of the Divine Being, but yet we must go back of 
them, and must fasten our eye upon the moral na- 
ture of God, that there we may see how the atone- 
ment expresses and pleases that moral nature. God's 
infinite abhorrence of sin and his infinite love of 
holiness, along with the instinct to punish the one 
and reward the other, shows that the atonement is 
a necessity of eternal righteouness. Sin never can 
be trifled with, for to the extent that we trifle with 
it we trifle with goodness and God. " Without 
shedding of blood is no remission." Heb. ix. 23. 

The atonement of the God-man is vicarious ; that 
is, he took our place in law and suffered in our 
stead. " He was wounded for our transgressions, 



THE ATONEMENT. 117 

he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement 
of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes 
we are healed/' Isa. liii. 5. AVhen the animal was 
sacrificed in Old-Testament times, its life was given 
for the life of the offender. If there is no substi- 
tution, there is no atonement. If Chrises life and 
death were designed merely to impress men, then 
that life and death had no atoning quality. It is 
admitted that the work of Christ will impress us, 
but the fact of impression does not make the work 
atoning. It is atoning first, and the real impres- 
sion is gained from that fact. AVe even admit that 
by means of the atonement the believer is to be 
made perfectly holy, yet it would be a great mistake 
to say that the atonement is simply subjective on 
that account. It is true also that the atonement 
upholds the divine moral government, but it does 
that because it first upholds the divine law. It is 
sometimes said that the atonement relates to prin- 
ciples rather than to persons : it relates both to per- 
sons and principles. 

The significance of Christ lies in the fact that he 
is the Atoner. The Eternal Son entered into time 
as a redemptive person. u He came to give his life 
a ransom for many." Mark x. 45. His position in 
the universe is not like that of any creature in ex- 
istence. Creatures are born or created by an act 
of sovereign power, it being impossible for them 
to have any choice in the matter ; but the Son of 
God became the Son of man by a voluntary act of 



118 THEOLOGY. 

his own. We are not to measure him by common 
rules of creaturely obligation. He being wholly 
exceptional, the one redemptive person in the sys- 
tem of the Almighty, his duty is unique. To say 
that Christ was merely the great Teacher, the great 
Reformer and the great Martyr is to lose sight of 
his expiatory character altogether, making him to 
be nothing but a very good man. That he is the 
ideal man is true as far as it goes. But when he 
says, " I lay down my life for the sheep " (John x. 
15), that is an ideal which is not in a line with any 
man whatsoever. Christ is always the Redeemer. 

If we are asked what we really mean by the 
atonement, our answer is this : It is a satisfaction 
made to divine justice by the sufferings and death 
of the God-man. The entire life of Christ upon 
earth was one of humiliation, and so it is redemp- 
tive. Although the atonement is a satisfaction to 
divine justice, it is none the less a manifestation of 
divine love. It was love which moved God to satis- 
fy his justice in this way ; and the greater the price 
paid for the redemption of men, the greater the di- 
vine benevolence. " Justice is satisfied in its sever- 
ities, and mercy in its indulgences. The riches of 
grace are twisted with the terrors of wrath. The 
bowels of mercy are wound about the flaming sword 
of justice, and the sword of justice protects and secures 
the bowels of mercy. Thus is God righteous with- 
out being cruel, and merciful without being unjust." * 
* Charnock, Attributes of God y vol. i. p. 557. 



THE ATONEMENT. 119 

Whatever value attaches to the punishment of 
the sinner, as great a value attaches to the atone- 
ment of the Saviour. All the judicial elements 
which enter into each are not alike, because the 
innocent can never suffer like the guilty. Christ 
had no sense of guilt, no feeling of remorse, no 
dissatisfaction, no despair ; but all these are sources 
of torment to the wicked. If it is the nature of 
justice to demand that the sufferings of the substi- 
tute should be the same in kind as that of the 
guilty, then there can be no atonement. That we 
have substitution at all shows that it is not needful 
that strict identity be carried out. Still, it is our 
doctrine that the sufferings of Christ were a sub- 
stituted penalty and not a substitute for a penalty. 
U A substituted penalty is a strict equivalent, but a 
substitute for a penalty may be of inferior worth, 
as when a partial satisfaction is accepted for a plen- 
ary one." * " Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Gal. 
iii. 13. The expiatory sacrifice of the God-man 
will more redound to the glory of justice than if 
the collective company of the saved had been left 
to suffer the due reward of their deeds. The value 
of the atonement is infinite, because it was a divine- 
human person who suffered. 

The intensity of Christ's sufferings can only be 
explained by the fact that they were penal The 
mental pain was that of complete agony. If the 
* Shedd Hist, of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 373. 



120 THEOLOGY. 

divine nature had not upheld the human, the hu- 
man would have given way. Christ was forsaken 
of God : he thus felt a torment equal to the second 
death. It would seem, even, that his pure mind 
suffered more by the withdrawal of the divine 
presence than any sinful soul could suffer, because 
a pure mind can fully realize what that loss is, 
while one that is sinful cannot. The burden of 
woe, however, only pressed upon him for a short 
time. If it had been the divine arrangement that 
Christ should pass through many Gethsemanes and 
suffer many crucifixions in order to atone for the 
guilty, we should have been appalled ; but as it is, 
the atonement is complete for all eternity. 

Besides, if Christ had to endure the eternal 
agonies of the lost, it would be necessary that the 
divine nature should suffer : the limited human 
nature never could " suffer the concentrated pun- 
ishment of the misery everlasting." We shrink, 
however, from the thought that God suffers. He 
is the absolute good, while suffering is an evil. It 
is therefore foreign to the divine nature. When 
we read of " crucifying the Lord of glory," that is 
simply transferring to the lower nature of Christ 
the attributes of the higher. I may say of a man 
with a wounded limb that he suffers, and yet the 
seat of suffering is the body, and not the personal 
mind. Certainly, "the Lord of glory" viewed as 
divine could not be crucified, because crucifixion 
has reference to the body. So also to " kill the 



THE ATONEMENT. 121 

Prince of life " could not mean to kill the eternal 
Son of God. 

We should be careful also to understand that the 
chief idea of the atonement is not that Christ should 
deliver us from suffering. That would look as if 
happiness were the great matter. We are delivered 
from punishment, guilt and sin. 

As regards the extent of the atonement a few 
statements may be made. It is a fact that all 
men are living under a redemptive system, and 
equally a fact that the full punishment of sin is 
not inflicted upon any man during the present 
life. These facts show that there is a sense in 
which the atonement is universal. " Christ is the 
propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John ii. 
2. As the same atonement w T hich answers for one 
man answers for a million, and the same atonement 
which answers for a million answers for the whole 
human race, it is difficult to see at what point it 
can be limited. As far as its nature is concerned, 
it is unlimited. If the redemption-price for souls 
were exactly proportioned to the number of souls 
saved, even as a debt is paid according to the exact 
amount due, it would be limited ; but no one un- 
derstands the atonement in that way. Have I the 
right, then, to tell any man that Christ died for 
him? I have such a right. Suppose that all 
men would accept of salvation if it were offered 
to them ; is it great enough to save them all ? It 



122 THEOLOGY. 

is great enough : " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life." John iii. 16. It may even benefit 
other worlds, if such need it and God so use it. 
Since all men receive certain favors because of the 
atonement, can I say it was intended for all ? I 
can. Whatever God does he always intended to 
do. Will the atonement save all? It will not. 
The numbers of men who oppose the gospel show 
that it does not save all. We are to distinguish 
between the existence of a remedy and the appli- 
cation of it. The atonement is sufficient for all, 
but not efficient in all. As it is a fact that the 
Christian redemption savingly benefits only a cer- 
tain class, it must have been specially designed 
for them. Hence we read that "the Church of 
God was purchased with his own blood." Acts 
xx. 28. 

Touching the priestly work of Christ in heaven, 
we know but little. Whether the intercession of 
the exalted Redeemer is carried forward by words, 
by signs or in silence we cannot say. It is sufficient 
that we have the fact itself, because that fact is 
crowded with heavenly and divine meaning. That 
Christ is a Mediator as well as an Atoner is an im- 
portant truth : " He is able to save them to the 
uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he 
ever liveth to make intercession for them." Heb. 
vii. 25. The whole life of Christ on earth and 



MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. 123 

in heaven is but one redemptive prayer. The in- 
finite merit of the God-man is pleading for ever 
for the people of his love. The fact that he is 
pictured out in heaven in the form of " a Lamb 
as it had been slain " is a constant appeal to the 
divine rnercy, forming a kind of sacrificial suppli- 
cation — no word being heard nor kneeling posture 
assumed, but simply the fragrance of atonement 
beseeching most sweetly that God would bless be- 
lieving souls. There is one thing about the prayers 
of Jesus — they are always answered. Favors reach 
us on many a day that have come from him. In- 
tercession opens the gates of heaven to ransomed 
souls. 



CHAPTEE III. 

CHRIST AS MEDIATOE BEFOEE REDEMPTION— 
MEDIATOR DURING REDEMPTION— MEDIATOR 
AFTER REDEMPTION. 

As we study the nature of God we can see inti- 
mations that he will come forth from himself. Al- 
mighty power is almost a prophecy of creation. 
The divine wisdom seems to demand a sphere 
where it may be manifested. The benevolence and 
blessedness of God suggest that various orders of 
beings will be called into existence. Omniscience 
and omnipresence make us think of a vast created 



124 THEOLOGY. 

system. Divine justice points to a class of moral 
agents who will be rewarded or punished. Then 
we have the mercy of God. How can that be ex- 
ercised unless there is a class of suffering and sin- 
ning people ? " Herein is involved the deep thought 
that love to what is below it has a mediatory sig- 
nificance." 

I. The Son of God as Mediator Previous 
to the Kingdom of Eedemption. 
As far as w 7 e can learn from Scripture, God does 
not act directly in the work of creation, but he acts 
through the medium of the Eternal Word. "All 
things were made by him [that is, by the Word], 
and without him was not anything made that was 
made. In him was life ; and the life was the light 
of men" (John i. 3,4); " By him [i. e. the Son] 
were all things created that are in heaven, and that 
are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be 
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : 
all things were created by him and for him." Col. 
i. 16, 17. 

The second person of the Godhead is thus the 
one who comes forth into time and space, unfolding 
the divine glories and carrying out the divine pur- 
poses. He mediates between God and the universe ; 
and in this high and comprehensive sense he is the 
Mediator. " He is the image of the invisible God," 
the One in whom dwells the ideals of all created 
things. It is the doctrine of the divine Trinity 



MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. 125 

which gives to us the true doctrine of the divine 
system. 

The mediatorial idea of the universe has been 
expressed by many leading minds. " In the East- 
ern Church it was the prevailing view to consider 
God the Father as the sole efficient cause of all 
existence ; the Logos (or Word) as being the reveal- 
ing and mediatory principle." Athanasius says, 
"The Father creates all through his Logos." Ba- 
sil of Csesarea says : " By the agency of the Son all 
spirits were brought into existence." * "Although 
man had remained immaculately innocent," remarks 
Calvin, "yet his condition would have been too 
mean for him to approach to God without a Medi- 
ator." f Lord Bacon expresses himself in this lan- 
guage : " I believe that God is so holy, pure and 
jealous as it is impossible for him to be pleased in 
any creature, though the work of his own hands, 
so that neither angel, man nor world could stand, 
or can stand, one moment in his eyes, without be- 
holding the same in the face of a Mediator."! 
Bucanus has these words : " Even supposing man 
had continued in his original righteousness, he would 
still have needed this Mediator." § Nitzsch is no 
less clear : " Christ had co-operated with the Father 
equally as Mediator in all the works of God (such 

* Neander's Church Hist. vol. ii. p. 420. 

f Institutes of the Christ. Religion, vol. i. p. 419. 

% See his Confession of Faith. 

\ Quoted in Dorner's Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Divis. 
ii., vol. i. p. 366. 
9 



1 26 THEOLOGY. 

as those of creation), as he even now does in the 
work of redemption." * 

The principle of mediation is seen through the 
whole of nature, as if it were a reflection of the 
mediatorship of Christ. Both God and man act 
through the medium of second causes. The uni- 
versal ether is the medium of light, and the air the 
medium of sound. Electricity is the swift chariot 
of thought. Heat conditions life, and gravitation 
mediates in the realm of matter. The senses are 
the mediators of all living things, and language is 
the medium by which soul reaches soul. The 
march of progress among all creatures is a march 
by steps of mediation. Laws, forces, typical forms 
and minds express the mediatorial idea. When 
we think seriously of the surrounding creation, it 
seems to be interceding in behalf of men, asking 
that the great Mediator may come in order to lead 
them back to God. 

II. The Incarnate Son of God as Mediator 
in the Kingdom op Redemption. 
The mediatorship of Christ has now a redemptive 
quality connected with it. The Lord of worlds has 
come to restore the defaced image of God and to 
build up a kingdom of love in the midst of unlov- 
ing men. The God-man is Redeemer and Recon- 
ciler. He stands forth as the Head of the Church. 
All believers are united to him by a spiritual life, 
* System of Christian Doctrine, p. 186. 



MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. 127 

so that Christ and Christians form but one mystical 
body. He is not merely the Chieftain of the new 
race of men : he is the organic centre. Christ 
" recapitulates" in himself the whole of redeemed 
humanity ; not only taking this humanity up into 
himself as its Redeemer, but summing up in him- 
self the ideal humanity. He leads the race back 
to its source and forward to its goal — leads men 
to God, who is both beginning and end. Theology 
is Christological because the Son assumed human 
nature, and the Father or the Spirit did not. The 
God-man is sovereign, by mediatorial right, of the 
higher order of intelligences, being " far above all 
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but also in that which is to come." Eph. i. 
21. He seems to be the wondrous bridge which 
extends from eternity to the utmost limits of life, 
through which flow the rivers of the ages. Well 
may Ignatius exclaim : "An archive to me is Christ; 
my incorrupt Bibliotheca is Christ's cross, death 
and resurrection." And with Polycarp we may 
say, " The faith delivered unto us is the mother of 
us all ; her eldest daughter is Love ; her second, 
Hope." 

The only person that opens the mysterious temple 
of the race and gives a full and final explanation 
of it is the Incarnate Mediator. "A complete sys- 
tem of truth must embrace both God and man, both 
time and eternity. It must have its ultimate 



128 THEOLOGY. 

grounds, beyond which our thoughts cannot reach- 
its ultimate ends, solving the problem of the final 
destiny of humanity ; and it must contain in itself 
the powers by which it can achieve the ends which 
it forecasts as needed and best. These tests of a 
real and final system of truth apply, we hold, to 
the Christian system, viewed as centring in the 
person and work of Christ, and to that alone." * 
Even M. Comte is willing to admit that " the first 
dawning sense of human progression was inspired 
by Christianity." f He says also that " the most 
certain signs of conceptions being scientific are con- 
tinuousness and fertility." J Where has any system 
shown the fertility and con tinuousness of the relig- 
ion of the divine-human Saviour? Its literature 
and its life and all embracing power speak for 
themselves. Certainly, the ultimate end of the 
race is not the attainment of knowledge and liberty, 
for these cannot banish sin from the soul. But 
when we see that God has given us a revelation of 
his will, has become incarnate in order to provide a 
redemption, and has sent his Spirit to apply that 
redemption, we behold a method that meets the 
state of fallen man. 

The working of providence is in the interest of 
redemption. The history of the race has divine 
and human elements in it, as if it were pointing to 
the divine-human Mediator. The world before 

* Henry B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, p. 143. 

■\ Positive Philosophy, p. 440. % Ibid, p. 447. 



MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. 129 

Christ and the world since are looking to him. 
The panorama of salvation is in process of unfold- 
ing. Picture after picture appears. We gaze at 
the cross of Calvary, on which the Son of God 
hangs as the central object; the Saviour ascending 
to the right hand of power ; the exalted Redeemer 
on his throne ; the work of the eternal Spirit in the 
hearts of the converted ; the hastening on of the 
latter-day glory ; the second coming of earth's 
King and Lord ; the awakening of the congregated 
dead; the array of all mankind at the bar of heav- 
en ; the trial and sentence ; the flight of the wicked 
to misery ; the consumed world ; the ascent of the 
righteous to the city of God ; the end of redemp- 
tion. 

III. The Incarnate Son of God as Mediator 
after the kingdom of redemption has 
Passed Away. 

Redemption is a wondrous episode of Infinite 
Love. It will be the one glory that will never 
be forgotten by good or bad. Although the work 
of redemption comes to an end, the God-man will 
still be related to the unnumbered millions he has 
redeemed. " The Lamb which is in the midst of 
the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
unto living fountains of waters: and God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes." Rev. vii. 17. 
As during the past eternity " the Word was with 
God," so during the future eternity the Incarnate 



130 THEOLOGY. 

Word acts with him. In the world of the saved 
there is " a pure river of water of life, clear as 
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and 
of the Lamb " (Rev. xxii. 1), showing that from 
the Mediator blessings flow to souls, and that he is 
the Minister and Monarch of a great people. 

There must be that in the God-man which will 
give him a universal significance apart from any 
redemption. The simple fact that there is to be 
an eternal God-man shows that he must sustain 
some high relation to God's system. Will he not 
be the medium through whom the Infinite com- 
municates with the finite ? The God-man is at 
once the revelation and the Revealer of God. This 
double characteristic throws out upon the coming 
eternity a blaze of divine glory. The God-man 
is evidently the central Being of the creation, the 
One toward whom all eyes are turned. He is not 
merely " the Desire of all nations," but he is the 
Desire of all worlds. When we see that there is 
an eternal significance connected with the God- man, 
that fact shows that sin is not the sole ground of 
the incarnation. If the incarnation is only of use 
with reference to the redemptive economy, then at 
the end of that economy the incarnation must cease. 
We should thus have two absolute religions — one 
centring in the divine-human Mediator, and the 
other centring in the Divine Being. But having 
the God-man to be eternal, he is then the point of 
unity for the one eternal and universal religion, 



MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. 131 

While we fully admit that the incarnate Son of 
God is the only means of salvation, we must be 
careful lest we make him nothing but a means. 
Is it not more proper to say that the God-man is 
both means and end f There is assuredly a great 
theology that is yet to appear during the sweep of 
the everlasting ages; and equally true is it that a 
great Christology must unfold itself for ever and ever. 
We cannot imagine how much is wrapped up in the 
one doctrine of an eternal God-man. There is 
simply an impression on the mind that truth and 
life of a very high nature are to show themselves. 
As the manifestation of God must be endless, so 
the mediatorial relation must be endless. The 
Incarnate Mediator, then, will be the glory of 
eternity. 



PAET IV. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON AND 
WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

OUR knowledge of the Spirit is not so extended 
as our knowledge of Christ. Even among the 
early Christians the Divine Saviour was more an 
object of study than the Divine Spirit. The tend- 
ency has been to think of grace rather than of the 
Person who brings it to us. 

1. The personality of the Spirit. The language 
" Spirit of God " does not always refer to the 
third person of the Trinity. Take this passage 
as an instance : "And Pharaoh said unto his ser- 
vants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man 
in whom the spirit of God is ?" Gen. xli. 38. 
There are numerous places, however, in the Bible 
in which the term " Spirit " implies a person dis- 
tinct from the Father and the Son. Christ says: 
" The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom 

132 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 133 

the Father will send in my name, he shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your re- 
membrance, whatsoever I have said unto you " 
(John xiv. 26); "When the Comforter is come, 
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even 
the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the 
Father, he shall testify of me." John xv. 26. If 
this language has any meaning, the Comforter is 
one of the persons of the Godhead. He is not 
the absolute Deity, neither is he an energy which 
comes from him ; but he is a divine person dis- 
tinct from the other divine persons. The mascu- 
line pronoun (he) is applied to him, and he does 
things which a person only can do. He loves, 
reproves, searches, reveals, teaches, guides, quick- 
ens, comforts, sanctifies. Then we are entreated 
not to " grieve the Holy Spirit." Only a person 
can be grieved. His names are striking : " The 
Spirit," "the Holy Spirit," "the Spirit of God," 
"thy good Spirit," "the Spirit of Christ," "the 
Spirit of grace," "the Spirit of truth," "the 
Spirit of glory," " the eternal Spirit." 

2. The divinity of the Spirit. The proofs of his 
personality are proofs also of his divinity. Note, 
however, one or two passages : " Peter said, Ana- 
nias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the 
Holy Ghost ?" " Thou hast not lied unto men, 
but unto God." Acts v. 3, 4. To lie to the Holy 
Ghost and to God is the same thing, as far as divin- 
ity is concerned. Then this text : " God hath re- 



131 THEOLOGY. 

vealed them unto us by his Spirit : for the Spirit 
search eth all things, yea, the deep things of God/' 
1 Cor. ii. 10. Here the treasures of the divine 
mind are revealed to us by the Spirit, as he only is 
able to explore that mind ; consequently, he must 
be divine. In the prophecy of Isaiah we have 
these words : " The Lord said, Go, and tell this 
people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not: and 
see ye indeed, but perceive not." Isa. vi. 9. In the 
Acts of the Apostles the same passage is referred to 
in this way : " Well spake the Holy Ghost by 
Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, Saying, Go 
unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, 
and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see 
and not perceive." Acts xxviii. 25, 26. Thus in 
one passage it is the Lord, and in the other it is the 
Holy Ghost, making plain the divinity of the Spirit. 
Then, too, the one sin that is unpardonable is the 
sin against the Holy Ghost, this clearly teaching us 
that the Holy Ghost is a divine person. 

3. The procession of the Spirit. This is sup- 
posed to point to a movement of the Godhead 
equally mysterious with that of the generation of 
the Son. The Greek Church believes that the 
Spirit proceeds from the Father; the Latin Church 
and the great body of evangelical Christians be- 
lieve that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and 
the Son. If the Son has no agency in this matter, 
it is feared that he will be viewed as less than the 
Father. Certain writers state that the Spirit pro- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 135 

ceeds from the Father through the Son. The doc- 
trine has come down to us in this form : " The 
Holy Spirit neither generates nor is generated, but 
proceeds from the Father and the Son." 

4. How the work of the Spirit is distinguished 
from the works of the other persons of the God- 
head. " The order of operation among the distinct 
persons depends on the order of their subsistence in 
the blessed Trinity. In every great work of God 
the concluding, completing, perfecting acts are as- 
cribed unto the Holy Ghost. Hence the immedi- 
ate actings of the Spirit are the most hidden, curi- 
ous and mysterious, as those which contain the 
perfecting part of the works of God. The begin- 
ning of divine operations is assigned unto the Fa- 
ther : i Of him, and through him, and to him, are 
all things/ Rom. xi. 36. The subsisting, estab- 
lishing and upholding of all things is ascribed unto 
the Son: ' He is before all things, and by him all 
things consist/ Col. i. 17. And the finishing and 
perfecting of all these works is ascribed to the Holy 
Spirit. I say not this as though one person suc- 
ceeded unto another in their operation, or as though 
where one ceased and gave over a work the other 
took it up and carried it on ; but on those divine 
works which outwardly are of God there is an 
especial impression of the order of the operation 
of each person with respect unto their natural 
and necessary subsistence, as also with regard unto 
their internal characteristic cal properties, whereby 



136 THEOLOGY. 

we are distinctly taught to know them and adore 
them." * 

5. The Spirit sustained a special relation to the 
man Christ Jesus. While the Lutheran Church 
has labored hard to clothe the humanity of Christ 
with divine attributes, the Reformed Church has 
endeavored to show that Christ as man was led by 
the Spirit, fully believing at the same time that he 
is a divine-human person. The human nature of 
Jesus was called into existence by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, and his soul was constantly influenced 
by the same Spirit. It is written that " the child 
grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wis- 
dom ; and the grace of God was upon him." Luke 
ii. 40. The phraseology, that " the grace of God 
was upon him," is exceedingly suggestive, hinting 
to us that every moral being, as he comes forth 
from the hand of his Maker, is endowed with su- 
pernatural gifts ; for if the ideal man was endowed 
with grace, much more will they who are less than 
he be thus favored, they needing the grace more 
than he ever could need it. Indeed, to begin exist- 
ence with a holy disposition is impossible without 
the presence of the Holy Spirit ; and if that dispo- 
sition is to continue, the same Spirit must animate 
the soul. There are three passages which may be 
noted : " And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost 
returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit 
into the wilderness " (Luke iv. 1) ; " The Spirit of 
Owen's Works, vol. iii. p. 94. 



the holy sprarr. 137 

the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me 
to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke iv. 18); 
u He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of 
God : for God giveth not the Spirit by measure 
unto him." John iii. 34. Thus Christ was con- 
ceived, consecrated, directed, cheered and sustained 
by the Divine Spirit. 

6. The Spirit may be viewed now as the inspirer 
of the Scripture-writers. " Holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
2 Pet. i. 21. In the Bible, therefore, we have an 
infallible rule of faith and practice. We cannot 
admit that the sacred penmen were allowed to 
fall into mistakes respecting persons, places, doc- 
trines, precepts and events. Points are not al- 
ways stated in full. Genealogical records are 
sometimes copied as they are found, although 
the records may show blanks here and there. 

Absolute contradiction of one writer with an- 
other, or of one writer with himself, does not 
exist. The Bible has its value from the fact that 
it is " the word of God.'* An erroneous book is 
of no use to erroneous men. The recent discov- 
eries in Assyria, in the Holy Land and in Egypt 
make it more and more clear that the Scripture 
records are authentic. A seeming mistake to-day 
is a truth to-morrow. Xot a single new doctrine 
or a new virtue has been discovered outside of 
Bible-teaching. The most that we can do is to 
draw out and apply divine revelation. The mure 



138 THEOLOGY. 

we are imbued with the Spirit, the better we shall 
understand that Book which the Spirit inspired. 
If I would see truth and God, I must be truthful 
and godly. 

7. Unusual gifts proceed from the Spirit. Among 
these are the word of wisdom, the word of knowl- 
edge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, 
prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of 
tongues, interpretation of tongues. Even bad 
men are sometimes affected supernatural ly, as Ba- 
laam in uttering words of prophecy, and Saul 
when among the prophets. Skillful men are 
sometimes made also more skillful, and inventive 
men are sometimes led to strike upon inventions 
by the help of God. 

8. The Spirit gives to all men " common grace" 
The fact that God's " Spirit will not always strive 
with man," and the other fact that there is a sin 
against the Holy Ghost, make it evident that the 
finally lost have been partakers of grace. It is 
a matter of consciousness that the Spirit power- 
fully affects thousands of impenitent men — men 
who remain impenitent in spite of all the in- 
fluences which are brought to bear upon them. 
Indeed, there is no telling how much mankind 
have been restrained from evil and prompted to 
deeds of virtue by the working of common grace. 
Conscience, the natural sympathies and the far-reach- 
ing aspirations of the soul have all been intensified 
by divine influence. This earth would be hell if it 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 39 

were not for the energy of common grace. The 
fearful thing about the lost in perdition will be 
that the Spirit of God has left them. We can 
say, then, that the whole human race are now 
living under a redemptive system. The system not 
being legal, not a single man will reach heaven by 
works of law. Of course all men are under law, 
but, inasmuch as all men have broken it, they can- 
not be saved by it : grace alone saves. 

9. The Spirit restores men to the image of God. 
Christ by his atoning work has provided an infi- 
nite fund of grace, and this is used by the Spirit 
in enlightening men, convincing them of sin, gen- 
erating in them a sense of need, leading them to 
make a complete surrender of their souls to the 
Saviour, and causing them to advance in holiness 
till perfection is reached. The work of the Spirit 
has about it a most wonderful delicacy and finish. 
Our rough natures do not perceive its beauty and 
fineness. When he works through human agency, 
we begin to notice his ways ; when he leads a man 
to utter a sentence or perform an action that blesses 
a soul for ever, we apprehend his power. If our 
tabernacle were pitched on the borders of heaven 
we should understand far better than we do now 
the mission of the Spirit. A feeling of awe steals 
over us as we think of his hidden work in souls. 
The solitudes of the mind are broken in upon by 
his presence. There is calmness and power. The 
night departs and the day begins. 



140 THEOLOGY. 

"The Holy Ghost," says Dr. Parker, "is the 
reasonable completion of theological revelation, 
and as such his ministry is an impregnable proof 
of the reasonableness of Christianity. In the 
person of Jesus Christ truth was outward, visible 
and most beautiful : in the person of the Holy 
Ghost truth is inward, spiritual, all-transfiguring. 
By the very necessity of the case the bodily Christ 
could be but a passing figure, but by a gracious 
mystery he caused himself to be succeeded by 
an eternal Presence, i even the Spirit of truth, 
which abideth for ever/ " * The Spirit is a kind 
of hidden Mediator — working in souls : Christ 
is an outward Mediator- — working for souls. The 
mediatorship of both will be everlasting. The 
good will always study God through the God- 
man, and will always commune with God through 
the Holy Spirit. 



CHAPTER II. 

ELECTION— THE PEESONS TO WHOM THE SPIEIT 
APPLIES THE DIVINE KEMEDY. 

GoDdoes not treat all men in the same way. He 
leads some to the attainment of wealth and knowl- 
edge, while others are left to poverty and ignorance. 
Advantages or disadvantages meet one according to 

* The Paraclete, p. 17. 



ELECTION. 141 

the century iii which he is born, the parents he 
happens to have and the nation in which he finds 
himself. The position of men as to climate and 
soil is equally varied. Then as to native endow- 
ments there is no similarity. No soul is like any 
other soul, and no human body is like any other 
human body. To say that God respects persons 
because he treats them differently is meaningless. 
He treats all fairly, never viewing the good as bad, 
nor the bad as good. If the mighty works which 
were done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been 
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented, 
showing that advantages were granted to the one 
class of people which were not granted to the other. 

The doctrine of election is not needed to tell us 
that only a certain number of men will be saved, 
because it is clear that only a certain number of 
men are truly pious. The doctrine of reprobation 
is not needed to tell us that there are men who will 
be lost, because it is equally clear that there are 
men who live and die in opposition to God. That 
one class are chosen and the other not, simply ex- 
plains the actual facts. Men have to accept of sal- 
vation and keep the commandments whether election 
is revealed or not. To say that election is confined 
to nations, and that the gospel call is general, does 
not express the whole truth. There are elect per- 
sons in the midst of the chosen nation, and there is 
an effectual call besides the one that is general. 

By election is meant the purpose of God to save 
10 



142 THEOLOGY. 

a certain number of the human race. The choice 
of the persons is not conditioned by good works, 
because they have none ; it is not conditioned by 
faith, because faith is the gift of God. Doubtless 
there are reasons in the mind of God why he se- 
lects one person instead of another. He never acts 
blindly. The reasons, however, are not revealed to 
us. All we know is, that God acts " according to 
his own good pleasure, and that he is infinitely 
holy, just and good." In order to save the persons 
he has chosen he leads them to repent, believe and 
become holy. As salvation is of grace from begin- 
ning to end, the entire glory belongs to God. 

Rev. Joseph A. Beet, the English Wesley an, 
makes the following candid statement : u With Cal- 
vin and Augustine, I hold firmly that salvation is 
entirely, from the first good desire until victory 
over death, a work of God and an accomplishment 
of his eternal purpose ; that we should never have 
begun to seek had he not first sought us, and that 
our seeking him was the result of his drawing us 
to himself ; that our faith is wrought in us by the 
word of God, and by influences which lead us to 
believe it ; and that every victory over sin and self 
is God's gift to us and work in us." * 

Proof-passages of the doctrine are these : " He 

hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the 

world, that we should be holy and without blame 

before him in love" (Eph. i. 4) ; "God hath from 

* Quoted in Biblioth. Sacra, vol. xxxix. p. 204. 



ELECTION. 143 

the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth " 
(2 Thess. ii. 13) ; " Whom he did predestinate, 
them he also called ; and whom he called, them he 
also justified : and whom he justified, them he also 
glorified" (Rom. viii. 30) ; "Who hath saved us, 
and called us with a holy calling, not according to 
our works, but according to his own purpose and 
grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before 
the world began " (2 Tim. i. 9) ; " So then it is not 
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but 
of God that showeth mercy." Rom. ix. 16. 

Sometimes the doctrine of election is made to 
appear both repulsive and false by a bristling state- 
ment of it. The Confession of Faith has a sen- 
tence of this character : " Some men and angels are 
predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
ordained to everlasting death." A theological mind 
will understand this, but a common mind will be 
confused by it. God does not create men to damn 
them. Men are punished because of wickedness, 
and the decree is founded on the fact of guilt. The 
purpose to save is a sovereign act, but the purpose 
to punish is & judicial act. When a judge decrees 
that a man shall be imprisoned for life, he is im- 
prisoned for life because of a criminal offence. To 
this no one can object. The Confession of Faith 
speaks also of "elect infants," as if some infants 
went to perdition. To avoid mistake on a subject 
of this kind, it should be distinctly understood that 



J 44 THEOLOGY. 

the belief of Presbyterians is, that all children dy- 
ing in infancy are regenerated by the Spirit and 
saved through the redemption of Christ. 

If all men begin life with what our Methodist 
friends call " gracious ability " and " full power of 
will," why is it that, as a matter of fact, all men 
have sinned in spite of that gracious ability and 
full power of will ? Surely the grace that was suf- 
ficient has proved itself inefficient, and the will 
that was powerful has proved itself powerless. If 
no man is responsible unless he receive gracious 
ability, why not leave the whole human race in that 
irresponsible state, as in that case all would escape 
punishment? Millions of men, on this theory, are 
able to trample upon the law and the gospel because 
their nature has been lifted up to a proper level by 
gracious ability, and these same men land them- 
selves in perdition as the result of grace. If this 
is the true theory, it is a strange one. 

But what is this " gracious ability " which is 
supposed to be given to all men? It cannot be 
holy ability or a new heart, for if it were either of 
these it would be the same as regeneration — a thing 
which few persons will claim. Although gracious 
ability, then, may be a power bestowed on man, yet 
if it is not the implantation of a principle of right- 
eousness, it leaves him still in the grasp of total 
depravity; and the query is, how a totally-depraved 
man can begin to love God supremely unless he 
has grace that will conquer that depravity. Sin can- 



ELECTION. 145 

not make choice of holiness. If vital piety makes 
its appearance in a man's soul for the first time, 
that vital piety is an effect ; and. as every effect 
must have a cause, the only adequate cause in such 
a case is God, " Election is simply the application 
of the law of causality to the religious life/ 3 * 

Men do resist the grace of God, and yet many 
such men are led to submit to God. showing that 
an influence was brought to bear upon them that 
was stronger than their resistance. The first con- 
vert of Dr. Duff speaks of himself in this way : 
"A twelvemonth ago I was an atheist, a materialist, 
a physical neces-arian ; and what am I now? A 
baptized Christian, . . . What a change ! My prog- 
ress was not that of earnest inquiry, but of earnest 
opposition. And to the last my heart was opposed. 
In spite of myself I became a Christian. Surely 
some unseen Power must have been guiding me. 
Surely this must have been what the Bible calls 
1 grace ' — free grace, sovereign grace — and if ever 
there was an election of grace, surely I am one.'' f 

It is a fact that men are usually converted in 
connection with divine truth, so that where the 
truth is not men are not usually converted. Thus, 
saving grace and the means of grace are in a sense 
linked together. Missionaries tell us that they find 
no godly men among the heathen. The theory of 
"a universal call/' with " sufficient grace,'' amounts 

* Prof. Smith. Introduction to Theology, p. 229. 
t Life of Alexander Duff, vol. i, pp. 159, 160. 



146 THEOLOGY. 

to almost nothing where the gospel is not found. 
There appears to be sovereignty in salvation, how- 
ever much that sovereignty may be opposed. We 
send the gospel to the heathen, because we believe 
they are more likely to be saved by the knowledge 
of it than if they did not possess that knowledge ; 
and, as a matter of fact, thousands heed the gospel 
call who formerly rejected every other. The num- 
bers of unconverted men outside of Christendom 
must ever be a tormenting puzzle to Arminianism. 
Add now to these the fallen angels, who are entirely 
cut off from salvation, and the puzzle is still more 
perplexing. 

Suppose that twenty persons represent the whole 
human family from first to last. According to Ar- 
minianism, God foreknows, let us say, that fourteen 
of these will repent and believe as the result of the 
Spirit's influence : he therefore elects them. The 
other six will not repent and believe : he therefore 
condemns them. According to Calvinism, God elects, 
let us say, fourteen of these persons, and by his 
Spirit leads them to repent and believe. The other 
six will not repent and believe : he therefore con- 
demns them. The same number are saved and the 
same number are lost whichever view is taken. 
So the one system has no gain over the other in that 
respect. 

Even if we admit that God gives to all men 
sufficient grace, he yet foreknows that a vast 
number of men will reject that grace, and be 



ELECTION. 147 

lost for ever as a consequence of that rejection ; 
so we do not find much relief from that theory. 
We should all know that the chief difficulties 
touching election are difficulties which belong to 
the problem of evil. Each thoughtful person 
will confess that whatever view w r e take of the 
divine decrees, there are phases of them which 
cannot be explained by us. A complete state- 
ment has not yet been found. Theology that is 
studied in heaven will modify many points of the 
theology which is studied on earth. 

The Arminian system is, in the main, pleasant. 
It seems to us more pleasant than certain facts in 
the moral government of God — more pleasant than 
certain teachings of the Bible itself. No person, 
after looking through it, could be excited to say, 
"Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath 
resisted his will ?" Rom. ix. 19. The Pauline 
predestination did prompt such angry questions. 
The tw^o systems, therefore, must be different. 

All Christians, however, when praying to God 
and praising him, and when stating their expe- 
rience, confess that it is by free grace alone that 
they are saved. When the blood- washed throng 
"shall come from the east and the west, and from 
the north and the south, and shall sit down in the 
kingdom of God" (Luke xiii. 29), they will all 
speak the same language and adore the same In- 
finite Love. Arminius and Calvin, Wesley and 
Whitefield, w T ill join hands around the throne. 



148 THEOLOGY. 

Election does no injury to those not elected. They 
receive many favors, and are treated far better than 
they deserve. If men are lost, God is not the cause 
of it. If the non-elect will accept of Christ, they 
will be saved. The door of heaven is shut only 
against those who refuse to enter. If men prefer 
not to be religious, they have no reason to find 
fault with God because he allows them to have 
their own way. 

The thought that a man can do as he pleases 
if he is only elected is without meaning. The 
election is to holiness, and no one can infer that 
he is elected unless he lives a holy life. Both the 
means and the end are decreed. If God has pur- 
posed that a certain man shall go to Europe, he 
will not go to Europe unless he enters a ship; 
and if God has purposed that a certain man shall 
be saved, he will not be saved unless he fights 
the good fight of faith. 

The practical effects of the doctrine of election 
are not in the line of evil. The large bodies of 
men who have believed in it stand favorably as to 
intelligence and Christian character. Predestina- 
tion was not the same as "fate" to them, and so 
it had no fatal influence upon their life. 



REGENERATION. 1 49 



CHAPTER III. 

REGENERATION— DIVINE LIFE INTRODUCED 
INTO THE SOUL BY THE SPIRIT. 

I. That which is not Regeneration. 
1. To be baptized is not to be regenerated. The 
Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Church and 
a party in the Lutheran and Episcopal churches 
believe in baptismal regeneration. The passage, 
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, 
he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John iii. 
5), is viewed as a proof-text for baptismal regen- 
eration. It is not even certain, however, that the 
words " born of water " refer to baptism : they 
may simply be a figure for purification. If the 
language does refer to baptism, it makes known 
the important truth that a man must publicly pro- 
fess the Christian religion if he would enter the 
kingdom of God. The outward acknowledgment 
of the Saviour shows that one has been " born of 
the Spirit." We read in another passage of " the 
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." Tit. iii. 5. The washing is a symbol of 
regeneration, but not the cause of it. The apostles 
urged upon men to "repent, and be baptized" — 
not that they should be baptized, and repent. The 
thief on the cross was converted, yet not baptized ; 
Simon Magus was baptized, yet not converted. If 
persons can be regenerated only in baptism, then 



150 THEOLOGY. 

all orthodox Friends and all unbaptized infants 
who die are shut out of heaven. It is a fearful 
doctrine that our eternal salvation must hang upon 
the single act of a minister, so that if he does not 
baptize us we are lost for ever. The mere state- 
ment of such a thought is enough to condemn it. 

2. Regeneration does not consist in rejecting a 
religion that is false and believing the religion that 
is true. A heathen and a Jew may become con- 
vinced of the truth of Christianity, the one reject- 
ing heathenism and the other Judaism, but that 
does not show that the heart is changed. A Uni- 
tarian may adopt a Trinitarian form of faith, and 
a Catholic may approve a sound Protestantism, but 
this may be nothing more than intellectual assent. 
Even the man who was a skeptic may become the 
defender of Christianity, but that does not make 
him a Christian. 

3. There is an experience that precedes the re- 
generation of adults which may be mistaken for 
regeneration itself. a. Divine truth is realized 
more clearly than usual. The mind is impressed 
and solemnized by it. The person is thoughtful. 
The conscience is sharpened by new light. The 
claims of God are felt. b. There is a sense of 
danger. The law has been broken. Redemption 
has been unheeded. The Spirit has been resisted. 
Probation has been wasted. Eternity is dark. 
God is displeased. A class of unhappy emotions 
have taken possession of the soul. c. There is a 



REGENERATION. 151 

deep conviction of sin. The man condemns him- 
self. There is no hope. The soul is guilty and 
lost. d. The man prays ; the urgency of his con- 
dition compels him to pray. He would like others 
to pray for him. The storm, however, still rages 
within and without, e. A change takes place in 
the life in certain particulars. A class of sins are 
set aside. New virtues appear. The Bible is read 
and the Sabbath is kept. There is a general ref- 
ormation of character. /. The need of redemp- 
tion springs up in the soul. Help must come 
from God. If there is no Saviour, there is no 
heaven. 

Now, however favorable all this may be, the new 
and true life has not yet appeared. There is illu- 
mination of the mind, but illumination is not regen- 
eration. If sin were confined to the intellect it 
would be nothing but error or ignorance. Sin, 
however, belongs to the heart and will, and no 
amount of light can drive it away. Reformation 
can be seen in the above experience, but reformation 
is not regeneration. There is an infinite difference 
between a character that is moral and a character 
that is evangelical. 



II. Nature of Regeneration. 

1. Regeneration implies a radical change of char- 
acter. We meet the words " born again," " born 
of God," << born of the Spirit." To be born is 



152 THEOLOGY. 

to begin a new life. The new life of regeneration 
is spiritual, because the man born of the Spirit is 
put in contrast with the man born of the flesh. 

2. Regenerating grace is efficacious. This means 
that the grace of God conquers the depravity of 
man. It is divine Love that conquers, not an 
iron necessity. Sickness gives way to health, 
slavery to freedom, sin to holiness. 

3. Regenerate character is permanent and govern- 
ing. The divine change is in the leading states and 
tendencies of the soul. There is a supreme and 
holy principle and a supreme and holy preference. 
Light has come to the mind, life to the heart, liberty 
to the will. 

4. The change effected in regeneration is instan- 
taneous. There can be no progress from a state of 
depravity to a state of goodness. If the dead are 
made to live, the life began at a certain moment. 
There is progress in the knowledge and in the 
conviction of sin which precede regeneration, but 
not in regeneration itself. 

The state into which men are brought by the 
new life is the opposite of the state into which 
they are brought by the fall. First, w 7 e have the 
gift of supernatural grace ; secondly, the under- 
standing has a new apprehension of divine things ; 
thirdly, the heart has delight in goodness ; fourth- 
ly, the will has a holy determination. Thus the 
entire soul is fundamentally changed. Of course 
there is no faculty that is absolutely freed from 



REGENERATION. 1 53 

depravity. The chief point is, that the regenerate 
nature has the mastery. 

III. Author of Regeneration. 
Regeneration is the act of the Divine Spirit. 
"God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love 
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead 
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ " 
(Eph. ii. 4, 5); "Not by works of righteousness 
which we have done, but according to his mercy, 
he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and 
renewing of the Holy Ghost." Tit. iii. 5. Divine 
life must come from the Divine Being. There 
is no way in which man can originate that life. 
Professor Pope, English Methodist, says : " The 
Holy Spirit always ends, even as he always begins, 
the work of goodness in man without human con- 
currence." * Professor Raymond, American Meth- 
odist, says : " Regeneration is a divine work ; it is 
effected immediately by the divine volition operat- 
ing upon the mind of man ; it is without the in- 
tervention of second causes ; it is of the nature of 
a miracle." f Our strongest Calvinists do not make 
the point any sharper than these two writers. John 
Owen, English Congregationalist, uses this language: 
"Regeneration consists in a new, spiritual, super- 
natural, vital principle or habit of grace, infused 
into the soul, the mind, will and affections by the 

* Compendium of Christian Theology, vol. iii. p. 24. 
t Systematic Theology, vol. ii. p. 356. 



154 THEOLOGY. 

power of the Holy Spirit."* Dr. Charles Hodge, 
American Presbyterian, says : "According to the 
evangelical system, regeneration is the act of God's 
almighty power. Nothing intervenes between his 
volition that the soul, spiritually dead, should live, 
and the desired effect." f 

If I am asked how the Divine Spirit regenerates 
the fallen soul, I would answer that I do not know. 
No man knows. " The wind bloweth where it list- 
eth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so 
is every one that is born of the Spirit." John iii. 8. 
Life in the plant and in the animal is a mystery. 
Equally mysterious is the commencement of spirit- 
ual life in a spiritually dead soul. The regenera- 
tive process is back of consciousness. The effects 
are all that we perceive. It is fair to believe, how- 
ever, that this regenerative process is in harmony 
with the constitution of the mind. 

Although God is the author of regeneration, he 
usually works in connection with preparatory means. 
" Of his own will begat he us with the word of 
truth." James i. 18. We are not accustomed to 
see men converted in a community or nation where 
the Bible is not found. The more the means of 
grace approach the true ideal, the more likely is it 
that God will bless them. The purer the example 
of Christians, the purer their teaching, the stronger 

* Works, vol. iii.: "On the Spirit," p. 329. 
f Systematic Theology, vol. iii. p. 31. 



SAVING FAITH. 155 

their faith, the more persevering their prayers, the 
greater is the probability that the Spirit will work 
in connection with such agencies. The mere fact, 
then, that regeneration is supernatural gives no 
encouragement to indolence. We are to appeal 
to every faculty of the soul, doing our utmost, 
yet conscious that God only can change the heart. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SAVING FAITH— THE SOUL LED TO REST ON 
CHRIST BY THE SPIRIT. 

A word may be uttered respecting faith and 
reason. Faith looks to the unseen, and is ground- 
ed on divine authority ; reason looks to that which 
is seen, and is its own authority. Sound faith and 
sound reason never clash. When reason becomes 
unreasonable it rejects faith, and when faith be- 
comes credulity it rejects reason. God is pure 
reason ; hence if any of his ways appear un- 
reasonable, the fault is ours. If erring man is 
only humble, he will see that faith begins where 
reason ends. The greatest philosopher should be 
the greatest saint. Christianity explains more 
things, answers more questions and gives more 
certainty to the troubled mind, than any theory 
of man. There are phases of truth and life which 
can be known only by experience. Men will be 



156 THEOLOGY. 

confused about conversion until they are converted ; 
they will not understand the Saviour until they are 
saved. While there is a sense in which knowledge 
must precede love, there is another sense in which 
love must precede knowledge. 

I. That which is not Saving Faith. 

1. Merely to believe that the Bible is the word 
of God is not saving faith. This is simply an 
assent of the understanding. A Christian will 
believe in the inspiration of Scripture, but to be- 
lieve in the inspiration of Scripture does not make 
a man a Christian. 

2. Merely to believe that Christ is the Saviour 
will not save the soul. "The devils believe and 
tremble." We believe that there were such men 
as Plato and Plutarch, and that there are such 
cities as London and Paris, although we have 
never seen the men nor the cities. This belief 
is founded on testimony, and is called historical 
faith. 

3. I may believe that Christ died for me, and 
yet not be saved. 

4. Saving faith does not consist in believing 
that we are actually redeemed by the sufferings 
and death of Christ. With such a view all that 
a man has to do is just to believe that he is saved, 
and he is saved. This is utter trifling. 

5. To believe that my sins are forgiven is not 
saving faith. It may be true or it may not be 



SAVING FAITH. 157 

true that my sins are forgiven. The faith that 
saves does not centre in that matter, but in Christ. 

II. Nature of Saving Faith. 

Saving faith is the heartfelt acceptance of the 
God-man as the only Saviour. One or all of such 
words as trust, confidence, reliance, dependence, 
acceptance may be used to express the act of 
faith. 

Our definition includes the following: a. With 
my understanding I believe Christ to be divine and 
human, and that he made the one atonement for 
the guilty. I thus do not rest in the highest crea- 
ture or the holiest man ; for to whatever extent 
such a person might reveal God, he could not 
redeem mankind, b. With my heart I feel the 
need of a divine Saviour. I go to him in peni- 
tence ; I am supremely attached to him ; I adore 
him because he is infinitely worthy, c. With my 
will I accept of him as my only Saviour. I trust 
my eternally lost soul in his hands, that he may 
eternally save it; I give myself away to him in 
a choice that is absolute. 

Thus, saving faith takes in the entire mind with 
its leading faculties. There is the assent of the 
understanding, the consent of the heart and the 
resting of the will. A dignity is laid upon faith 
when it is viewed in this way. There is compass 
and power to it. Such faith is of necessity a 
principle of action ; holiness will be sure to spring 
11 



158 THEOLOGY. 

from it. It can no more cease from righteousness 
than the sun can cease from shining. The apostle 
Paul, who may be held up as a model Christian, 
says : " The life which I now live in the flesh I 
live by the faith of the Son of God." Gal. ii. 20. 
The noted characters mentioned in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews were all men of faith. Reformers 
have fought with evil and martyrs have gone to 
the stake because they believed in Christ, If mere 
intellectual assent were held up as saving faith, it 
would be powerless for good; but since the "faith 
is rooted and grounded in love/ 9 there is heartfelt 
obedience. An unholy believer is as great a con- 
tradiction as a holy unbeliever. 

It may be well to remark that although saving 
faith centres in the incarnate Redeemer as its chief 
object, it is not confined to that exalted person. God 
and his providence, divine truth and the divine law, 
are all objects of religious faith, and are not less 
cordially accepted than is Christ himself. Even 
the faith which is intellectual when exercised with 
reference to divine realities is spiritualized by the 
evangelical element. 

III. Results of Saving Faith. 
1. We are justified by faith. A person is justi- 
fied when he stands right in the eye of the law. 
Fallen man is condemned, but by the gospel meth- 
od of justification he is treated as righteous when 
he accepts Christ. The righteousness of Christ 



SAVING FAITH. 159 

is placed to his account as if he had performed it 
himself. Justification does not make us personally 
holy : sanctification, however, will be sure to follow 
in due time. Pardon is not the same thing as jus- 
tification. When a criminal is pardoned by a hu- 
man ruler he is delivered from the penalty, but is 
not viewed as innocent. When the believer is par- 
doned by the divine Ruler, he is delivered from the 
penalty and viewed as innocent. 

We are said to be justified by faith alone, because 
it is faith which links the soul to the Saviour. We 
are not justified by faith and works combined, as 
that would make us, in part, meritorious in our 
salvation. If it is said that faith itself is a good 
work, and to that extent we are justified by it, we 
answer : That to trust in Christ altogether in order 
to be saved shows that we are absolutely sinful and 
helpless ; and if faith expresses such sinfulness and 
helplessness, it cannot be viewed as a work of law, 
having in it the element of legal merit. Faith in 
a Saviour is a qualification made necessary by re- 
demption, and is itself the product of divine grace, 
and so it cannot be looked upon in the same light 
as the faith which an angel has in God. Strictly 
speaking, it is the righteousness of Christ which 
justifies us, and not our faith. 

2. As another result of faith we are adopted into 
the divine family. "As many as received him, to 
them gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his name." John i. 12. 



160 THEOLOGY. 

In this state of sonship the Spirit dwells in us, 
Christ is our Elder Brother and God is our Father. 
While upon earth we are trained, chastened, com- 
forted and fitted for heaven. That we are " heirs 
of God and joint-heirs with Christ " shows the 
dignity of our position ; and so we are prompted 
to live in a way suitable to it. We possess also 
the sure title to a heavenly inheritance ; and at the 
last day " we shall be delivered from the bondage 
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the chil- 
dren of God." Rom. viii. 21. 

3. Faith brings us into a most blessed state of 
union and communion with the Triune God. Be- 
lievers are "in Christ." as if they formed a part of 
him. They are also "hid with Christ in God." 
Objectively, the Christian is "reconciled to God 
by the death of his Son ;" and subjectively, he is 
united to him by the life of that Son. Thus in a 
double sense " we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." We are also "in the 
Spirit" and have "joy in the Holy Ghost." 

4. There is now the witness of the Spirit. " The 
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we 
are the children of God." Rom. viii. 16. It is the 
opinion of good men that the Spirit acts directly on 
the soul, producing an impression that the person 
is accepted and saved. The witnessing is of the 
nature of a new revelation, and the believer knows 
as certainly that he is a child of God as if he read 
it in the Bible. It is thought to be reasonable that 



SAVING FAITH. 161 

" the witnessing act of the Spirit should be as im- 
mediate and direct as the justifying or regenerating 
act." 

There is one difficulty in regard to this view — 
that numbers of pious people know nothing of it 
by experience. They understand the matter in this 
way : As they are penitent, believing, loving and 
determined to live for God, so from these fruits of 
the Spirit they are convinced that they are his fol- 
lowers. Christians are spoken of as " sealed." This 
shows that the divine image has been stamped upon 
their heart, by reason of which they have the evi- 
dence of sonship, the Spirit meanwhile working 
through this evidence and making it appear as cer- 
tain. This way of looking at the subject seems 
safer than by the theory of immediate suggestion. 
Satan might take advantage of such a theory, and 
convince a man that he is a Christian when he is 
not ; but he cannot work with the other view, and 
generate in the soul holy emotions. Still, if one is 
sure that the Spirit bears witness directly, be it so; 
only admit that he also bears witness indirectly. 

5. Full assurance is another consequence of sav- 
ing faith. Faith in Christ and assurance are not 
the same. I first believe in Christ ; then I am 
assured of my salvation because I do believe. I 
do not reach heaven because I have a conviction 
that I am saved, but I reach heaven because I 
trust in Christ. Many Christians have doubts 
and fears. These doubts and fears do not arise 



162 THEOLOGY. 

from the suspicion that Christianity may be un- 
true : they arise from the fact that the persons are 
not sure whether they are children of God. They 
behold so much evil in their heart, and suffer such 
mental pain on account of it, that they are perplexed 
touching their spiritual state. Merely to tell such 
Christians that salvation is certain, and that they 
ought to be assured, does not meet their case, because 
the trouble with them is that they do not fully know 
that they are Christians, and so they are afraid to 
make application of the divine promises. It is fair 
to suppose also that God will not grant the gift of 
assurance to an inconsistent professor. The perplex- 
ity of mind is the result of sin, and the way to ban- 
ish the perplexity is to banish the sin. " Hereby we 
do know that we know him, if we keep his com- 
mandments." 1 John ii. 3. It is of no use to say 
to a worldly church -member that he must not look 
to himself, but to Christ. He has great need to 
look to himself, and to see whether he is not build- 
ing on the sand. The course of a class of religion- 
ists, in proclaiming their assurance at the very time 
when their life is proclaiming their selfishness, is 
purely Antinomian, and is the way to make religion 
distasteful to men of understanding. We admit that 
excellent Christians have doubts of their being 
accepted of God ; they do not grasp a finished 
salvation and rest in Christ : perhaps their mind 
is clouded by a diseased body, by a native melan- 
choly or by an excess of timidity. The fault with 



REPENTANCE. 163 

them is not their wayward life. They are the ones 
who should look to Christ, and not to themselves, 
resting in him with a trustful faith. 

The assurance of hope is a state of high Chris- 
tian experience, and it can belong only to those who 
live near to the Saviour. Paul could say, " I know 
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he 
is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
him against that day." 2 Tim. i. 12. The assur- 
ance of hope and the assurance of faith are distin- 
guished from each other. When we are fully as- 
sured of the way of salvation through Christ, and 
of our interest in that salvation, we have the assur- 
ance of faith ; but when we have a sure expect- 
ation of eternal blessedness springing from our 
faith, w r e have the assurance of hope. One may 
have this at the beginning of his religious course, 
at the middle or toward the end of it, if the con- 
ditions are supplied. When once the point is 
reached, the sky is clear, the sun does not set, the 
city of God is seen and the soul is at rest. 



CHAPTER V. 

REPENTANCE — THE TURNING FROM SIN TO 
HOLINESS BY THE AID OF THE SPIRIT. 

I. That which is not Repentance. 
Every part of religion can be counterfeited. 
There is a spurious faith, penitence, love, hope 



164 THEOLOGY. 

and obedience. The most of men exercise, at 
times, what is called natural repentance. In this 
there is the feeling of regret that evil has been 
done. It was wrong to sin, but the sin was viewed 
mainly in its human aspects. There may be more 
or less of shame if the sin has come to the knowl- 
edge of other persons. The consequences of wrong- 
doing affect the mind, rather than the wrong-doing 
itself. That suffering follows transgression gen- 
erates fear, and fear prompts to repentance. A 
fair outward life may now be the result. An 
awakened conscience, and not a pure heart, has 
been the chief power at work. Natural repentance 
is always limited in its range and deficient in its 
quality. Certain sins are rejected, while other 
sins are retained. Natural repentance is repent- 
ance toward man. Evangelical repentance is re- 
pentance tow r ard God. 

II. Nature of Repentance. 

"Regeneration is the act of God." Repentance 
is the act of man — an act put forth under the in- 
fluence of divine grace and expressing a change 
of mind. Regeneration is a single act. Repent- 
ance is repeated while sin remains. As the re- 
sults of regeneration are new views of sin and 
holiness, self and God, Christ and salvation, time 
and eternity, so repentance connects itself with all 
these. 

If we analyze repentance, it has the following 



REPENTANCE. 165 

elements: 1. There is real sorrow because of our 
sin. The sorrow may be intense or it may be 
moderate, that depending upon the person's tem- 
perament and upon his knowledge in regard to evil. 
The chief thing is the quality of the sorrow rather 
than the quantity. 2. There is self-condemnation 
because sin has been committed. The man up- 
braids himself, abhors himself, and is ashamed as 
in the sight of God, apart from what men may 
think of the evil. 3. There is hatred of sin as 
sin. It is not that the fruits of sin are bad, or 
that vice and crime are chiefly detested. Sin it- 
self is hateful, and so it is hated, just as holiness 
is lovely, and so it is loved. 4. Confession of sin 
is made to God. While sin is against men, and 
injures the soul that is guilty of it, there is a feel- 
ing that it is mainly against God. There is another 
feeling, however — that Gocl in Christ is merciful, 
and that full confession will gain his favor. 5. 
The man now turns from all sin and makes resti- 
tution to those he has defrauded. The simple pur- 
pose to amend one's ways is not comprehensive 
enough to constitute repentance. There must be 
an unconditional surrender of the soul to God, 
loving him supremely, having a fixed determina- 
tion to obey him ; and all this connected with a 
feeling of dependence on Christ. Regeneration, 
faith and repentance now blend together; and so 
there is a great voluntary movement of the will 
that is fixed and continuous. The state of im- 



166 THEOLOGY. 

penitence which formerly held the soul is broken 
up, and the state of penitence now holds sway. 
" If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : 
old things are passed away ; behold, all things are 
become new." 2 Cor. v. 17. 

Christian character is not a single good which 
can be placed on a level with other good things. 
It is not to be ranked with fine taste, culture and 
philanthropy. Religion is not a step toward some- 
thing higher, that something higher being the chief 
thing. It is not a means at all : it is the great end 
of existence. If religion does not reign within 
making servants of all the faculties of the soul, it 
is a delusion and a dream. 

III. Reasons why Man should Repent. 

1, It is a duty. " God commandeth all men 
everywhere to repent." Acts xvii. 30. Impeni- 
tence is rebellion, while penitence shows cordial 
submission to divine authority. No man has a 
right to remain a moment away from God. 2. 
There is no escape from sin unless a man repents. 
It is certain that if a person will not turn from 
sin he is held to sin. Repentance is an absolute 
necessity if one would reach a good life. The 
requirement is not arbitrary, but reasonable. 3. 
No man can be forgiven unless he repents. If 
impenitent men were forgiven, a premium would 
be offered to sin, and that would be making evil 
to be good. " Let the wicked forsake his way, 



REPENTANCE. 167 

and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let 
him return unto the Lord, and he will have 
mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will 
abundantly pardon." Isa. lv. 7. 4. Salvation can- 
not reach a man unless he repents. Salvation is 
designed to make men holy, but if they will not 
repent they reject God's remedy for sin. It is 
either repentance or perdition. u Except ye re- 
pent, ye shall all likewise perish." Luke xiii. 5. 

IV. Evidence of Repentance. 

The spirit of obedience shows that the character 
is changed. The best evidence that one is a 
Christian is his Christianity. If parents have 
entered upon the divine life, the fact will be ap- 
parent in the interest felt for their children. They 
will converse with them on personal piety, and will 
pray to God in their behalf — things which they 
never did before. Then the uprising of the mis- 
sionary spirit, with the willingness to bestow money 
in order to save distant and unknown men, is a fine 
evidence of piety. The delight also in those who 
bear the image of God is a mark of the true re- 
ligion. " We know that we have passed from 
death unto life, because we love the brethren." 
1 John iii. 14. 

The best proof of a holy change is a holy life. 
Christ says, u He that hath my commandments 
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." John 
xiv. 21. " Christian practice/' remarks President 



168 THEOLOGY. 

Edwards, "is plainly spoken of in the word of 
God as the main evidence of the truth of grace, 
not only to others, but to men's own consciences. 
It is not only more spoken of and insisted on than 
other signs, but in many places where it is spoken 
of it is represented as the chief of all evidences. 
. . . Not that there are no other good evidences 
of a state of grace but this. There may be other 
exercises of grace besides those efficient exercises 
which the saints may have in contemplation that 
may be very satisfying to them, but yet this is the 
chief and most proper evidence. There may be 
several good evidences that a tree is a fig tree, 
but the highest and most proper evidence of it is 
that it actually bears figs"* 



CHAPTER VI. 



PKAYEK— HOLY DESIEE AWAKENED BY THE 
SPIRIT. 

We need not be perplexed with the thought as 
to whether God can answer prayer. That all in 
the natural and moral world is fixed does not ren- 
der prayer useless, because means and end are alike 
decreed, and the natural is made subordinate to the 
moral. In forming his plan God can easily make 
prayer a part of it, so that in the outworking of 
* Works, vol. iii. pp. 213, 216. 



PRAYER. 1G9 

this plan rain may fall on a certain clay, a sick 
man may be healed and a bad man may be con- 
verted in answer to prayer. Foreordination may 
include good harvests to certain people, success in 
trade to certain people, and yet the agency of the 
persons thus favored could easily have a place in 
the foreordination. 

Besides, by an act of sovereign free will God 
may modify the course of nature at certain points, 
just as man modifies it when he forces water up 
into a reservoir or when he bends the rays of the 
sun to one side. Surely it is going too far when 
we are compelled to think of an almighty Being 
as chained to a system of materialism, having even 
less power to act upon matter than the creatures he 
has made. 

Objections against prayer from the immutability 
of law are objections against the existence of God. 
As their end is atheism, they should be trampled 
under foot. By "the theory of pre-established 
harmony " part may fit with part, and the whole 
system move forward without confusion, there be- 
ing ample play for matter and mind, ample room 
for divine and human freedom. It is a remark of 
John Foster, " that whenever a man prays aright 
he forgets the philosophy of it, and feels as if his 
supplications really would make a difference in the 
determination and conduct of the Deity. In this 
spirit are the prayers recorded in the Bible."* 
* Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 152. 



1 70 THEOLOGY. 

Prayer naturally arises from our sense of weak- 
ness and dependence. Then the fact that we are 
sinners and exposed to manifold evils moves us 
to pray. Prayer is desire. We want strength, 
forgiveness, reconciliation with God, faith and a 
pure life, fitness for heaven ; and so we put that 
want into the form of language and tell it to God. 
All the varied movements of inward piety seem to 
be of the nature of prayer. Grief because of sin 
is a sigh for holiness. The feeling of need is a cry 
for salvation. The feeling of un worthiness pro- 
claims God to be all. Love delights in the Infi- 
nite Love, and expresses itself in worship. Faith 
in Christ makes the worship mediatorial. The 
consciousness of favors received generates thank- 
fulness. Joy in the Holy Ghost is the renewed 
spirit ascribing glory to God. The realization of 
worship is communion with the heavenly Father. 
The Christian heart is thus a manifold prayer. 

I. Only to God is Prayer to be Addressed. 
No other person can help us with the kind of 
help that we need. Angels and glorified spirits 
can neither hear us nor give what we want. Is it 
right to pray to Christ? Yes. It would be 
strange if the person who can save us should not 
be addressed in prayer. When we sing, u Come, 
Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove," that is praying to 
the Spirit; and when we sing, "Jesus, lover of 
my soul, let me to thy bosom fly," that is praying 



PRAYER. 1 7 I 

to Christ. The penitent thief said, " Lord, re- 
member me when thou coniest into thy kingdom." 

Luke xxiii. 42. While it is proper to pray to 
Christ, the more common method is to pray to God 
through Christ. He is the Mediator between God 
and men. and the person who has made atonement 
for us ; so he is both the channel of prayer and the 
one for whose sake the prayer is answered. " What- 
soever ve shall ask the Father in my name, he will 
give it you." John xvi. 23. 

II. Parts of Prayer. 

1. Adoration. In this we adore and magnify 
God. We mention over the divine perfections — as 
power, holiness, justice and blessedness — express- 
in g our admiration of these. In the book of 
Psalms the adoration of God is common: " Bless 
the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art 
very great ; thou art clothed with honor and maj- 
esty/" Ps. civ. 1. The essence of worship centres 
mainly in adoration. The statements we have 
respecting the worship of heaven convey this idea : 
"They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, 
holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and 
is to come.'' Eev. iv. 8. It is to be feared that 
the property of adoration is well nigh gone from 
our modern Christian worship. The conscious- 
ness of self is so extreme that the sense of divine 
glories does not carry away the soul. 

2. Praise. Our word "hallelujah" has a He- 



172 THEOLOGY. 

brew origin, and is translated in parts of the Bible 
by the words " Praise the Lord." Rendered liter- 
ally, it would be "Praise Jah," the word "Jah" 
being the poetical form for Jehovah. That part 
of prayer which is of the nature of praise is fre- 
quently mentioned in Scripture : " I heard a great 
voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia ; 
Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto 
the Lord our God " (Rev. xix. 1) ; " Praise the 
Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the 
Lord." Ps. cxlvi. 1, 2. Praise and adoration are 
linked together, both showing that the soul is 
enraptured with the excellencies of the Divine 
Being. 

3. Thanksgiving. "Oh, give thanks unto the 
Lord ; for he is good : for his mercy endureth 
for ever." Ps. cxxxvi. 1. All that pertains to 
life is a matter of thanksgiving. We are living 
under a redemptive economy, and that economy 
is a gift. If we have a title to heaven we 
ought to thank God for his infinite benevolence. 

4. Confession. We are to realize our sinful 
state, are to admit that we are guilty, and are to 
confess to God our sin and guilt, praying to him 
to forgive us, we heartily repenting. " He that 
covereth his sins shall not prosper : but whoso 
confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." 
Prov. xxviii. 13. 

5. Petition. We need some good, and we ask 
God for it. If our heart is indifferent and our 



PRAYER. 173 

will perverse, we pray that the heart may be inter- 
ested and the will made obedient. If doubts 
trouble us and besetting sins carry us away, we 
pray that they may be removed. We also ask God 
to bless others. This is an important part of peti- 
tion. The Christian is an intercessor. He prays 
that men may be converted, that the people of God 
may be useful, that nations may dwell in peace and 
that rulers may govern in wisdom. 

III. Kinds of Prayer. 

1. The simplest kind of prayer is ejaculatory. 
If we are about to travel by sea or land, we silently 
pray to God to keep us from danger. Whenever at 
any moment we feel our ignorance and wickedness 
we can pray for light and sanctification. 

2. Private Prayer. Each morning, all alone, be- 
fore we enter upon our particular business, we pray 
for grace to enable us to overcome temptation, 
grace to enable us to show 7 a good example, and 
that we mav live for the glorv of God and the 
good of men. Each evening we pray that the sins 
of the day may be forgiven, that we may be pro- 
tected during the night, and that if death comes to 
us we may be ready. Private prayer should never 
be omitted. David says, " It is good to show forth 
thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faith- 
fulness everv night." Ps. xcii. 2. Again, " Even- 
ing, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry 
aloud : and he shall hear my voice." Ps. iv. 17. 

12 



174 THEOLOGY. 

Still further, " Seven times a day do I praise thee, 
because of thy righteous judgments." Ps. cxix. 164. 

3. Family Prayer. God is to be recognized and 
honored in the household. It seems like a species 
of heathenism to have a family and no fixed wor- 
ship to begin and end the day. The words are 
startling : " Pour out thy fury upon the heathen 
that know thee not, and upon the families that call 
not on thy name." Jer. x. 25. Wherever Abraham 
settled he erected an altar, showing that he could 
not live without the worship of God. " I query 
if that beautiful form of prayer which our blessed 
Lord gave to his followers does not involve an ar- 
gument in favor of family prayer — nay, of daily 
family devotion. It is worthy of remark that in 
the sixth chapter of Matthew, after he had directed 
his disciples with regard to private prayer, he did 
not stop there. In the seventh verse he begins to 
use the plural number, and, proceeding to a social 
act of worship, he refers to the prayers of such as 
could pray together daily" * 

4. Public Prayer. This brings men together, 
adds to their religious power, tends to uphold 
Christianity, becomes a declaration of our faith in 
God and Christ, and shows that to us religion is 
supreme. He who disregards public worship is 
taking sides with the unbeliever. " The Lord lov- 
eth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings 
of Jacob." Ps. lxxxvii. 2. 

- Anderson's Domestic Constitution, p. 326. 



PRAYER. 175 

IV. Prevailing Prayer. 

1. If we would prevail with Gocl we must turn 
from evil. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the 
Lord will not hear me." Ps. lxvi. 18. There is not 
a promise in the Bible that is offered to an impeni- 
tent man. 

2. If we would have a blessing to come down 
upon others w r e must live a consistent life. There 
is nothing that God loves to honor so much as holi- 
ness. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in 
you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you." John xv. 7. 

3. Prayer to be acceptable must be offered in 
faith. "He that cometh to God must believe that 
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him." Heb. xi. 6. The prayer of faith 
must be in harmony with the divine will. "This 
is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we 
ask anything according to his will, he heareth us." 
1 John v. 14. The Spirit generates the prayer of 
faith, and such prayer is always answered. A fa- 
natical prayer of faith, the result of a heated fancy, 
is not answered. 

4. In the offering up of supplication I must 
have a submissive spirit. I am not to dictate to 
God, as if I beheld the secrets of redemption and 
knew what should be done in given circumstances. 
I must be humble and earnest, but not insolent. 

5. Acceptable prayer has the characteristic of 
perseverance. The power to hold on for months 



176 THEOLOGY. 

and years is the power that shows character. He 
that trusts the longest is the strongest. Christ has 
offered up prayers that will not be answered for 
ages. God speaks, takes one step — then rests for 
a thousand years. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

SANCTIFICATION— PKOGKESSION IN HOLINESS BY 
THE POWEK OF THE SPIKIT TILL PEEFECTION 
IS BEACHED. 

Justification is instantaneous, and complete for 
all believers from the beginning: sanctification is 
progressive, and so not complete in all believers 
from the beginning. The former is outward, the 
latter inward. The one is the judicial and loving 
act of God, and the other is the benevolent work 
of God. In justification we are viewed as stand- 
ing right in law ; in sanctification we keep advan- 
cing until we are actually righteous according to the 
law. In justification we are pardoned and have 
a title to heaven ; in sanctification we are at last 
purified and fitted for heaven. 

To sanctify has two meanings. First, it means 
to set apart a person or thing to a sacred use. The 
vessels of the temple were thus sanctified, or set 
apart to the service of God. Christ says, " I 
sanctify myself;" that is, I devote myself to the 
work of redemption. Secondly, to sanctify is to 



SANCTIFICATION. 177 

make holy, as in this passage : " The very God 
of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God 
your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 1 Thess. v. 23. It is to this latter 
meaning that we limit ourselves in what follows. 
The chief end of redemption as related to the 
Christian is the production of holiness, and the 
chief end of the Christian is to reach holiness 
through that redemption. 

I. God the Efficient Agent in Sanctifi- 

cation. 
"And I will give them one heart, and I will 
put a new spirit within you ; and I will take the 
stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them 
a heart of flesh : that they may walk in my 
statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them " 
(Ezek. xi. 19, 20); "I have planted, Apollos 
watered ; but God gave the increase. So then, 
neither is he that planteth anything, neither he 
that watereth ; but God that giveth the increase." 
1 Cor. iii. 6, 7. There is not a particle of holi- 
ness in the w T orld but that can be traced to a 
supernatural origin. Of course there is a sense 
in which the work of sanctification may be called 
divine-human. The Christian has in him a new 
nature, and that new nature co-operates with the 
Spirit. We work out our salvation because God 
works in us. 



178 THEOLOGY. 

II. Means of Sanctification. 

1. As Scripture reveals to us the leading thoughts 
relating to God and man, the divine law and the 
eternal state, the way of salvation and the condi- 
tions by which it becomes ours, so Scripture is the 
chief instrumentality in the development of holi- 
ness. " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy 
word is truth." John xvii. 17. Sometimes a 
single sentence of the Bible will inspire the whole 
soul, moving it forward in deeds of purity. Di- 
vine truth, with its authority, certainty, and com- 
plete adaptation to the wants of man, is used by 
the Spirit as the most suitable means in the work 
of sanctification. 

2. Then we have the ordinances of divine wor- 
ship. These are of like character and tendency 
with the truth of God. The preaching, prayer, 
praise and the sacraments are all means of grace to 
the mind that is obedient. Let persons fail in 
their attendance upon public worship, and their 
decline in piety is certain. One of the surest 
ways to undermine the Christian religion is to set 
light by the Sabbath and the sanctuary. 

3. The afflictions of life have a sanctifying in- 
fluence. " No chastening for the present seemeth 
to be joyous, but grievous : nevertheless, afterward 
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto 
them which are exercised thereby." Heb. xii. 11. 
The mind is subdued and softened under affliction ; 
the attractions of earth lose their power ; the eye 



SANCTIFICATI0N. 179 

is fixed on heaven ; the soul is drawn toward God ; 
character is felt to be of greater value than all 
things else. 

4. Witnessing a holy example leads to holiness. 
Reading the biographies of saintly men makes us 
wiser and better. The life of Christ, however, has 
power above every other life. His loveliness makes 
us to see our deformity, causing us to long to be 
like him. We sigh as he passes before us, as if we 
were praying in the depths of our being for his 
aid, feeling that we shall never become well till 
his life has become ours. In the darkness he is 
the light of our way, and at the end of our path 
he is heaven. "We all, with open face beholding 
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, even as 
by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. iii. 18. 

III. Sanctificaton through Conflict. 
1. By struggling against sinful tendencies. In 
conversion the work of holiness is only begun. 
A corrupt nature and evil habits are to be de- 
stroyed. A cross meets the soul at the beginning, 
and meets it all the way through life. The cross, 
however, is not peculiar to Christianity. It con- 
nects itself with whatsoever is valuable in time. 
To reach mental power or proficiency in any call- 
ing is not possible without the cross. There is 
a cross in every climate and every season, in the 
land and in the sea, in the air and in the light, 



180 THEOLOGY. 

in the body and in the soul, in all governments 
and all relations. Being imperfect, we are under 
discipline; so the Christian must battle with evil. 
If he fights not, he wins not. In proportion as 
we weaken evil habits we strengthen good habits. 
If one will note down on paper his sinful tend- 
encies, he will see the work to be done, and will 
be startled at the depravity which clings to the 
soul. There is pride, envy, jealousy, a movement 
of revenge, impatience, evil-speaking, selfishness, 
a degree of untruthfulness, the unforgiving spirit, 
worldly-mindedness, frivolity, uncharitableness, an- 
ger, moroseness, sins of the flesh in thought or act, 
the tendency to forget God. Then all the sins of 
omission, — what a list they would make ! It is 
no easy work to set the soul right. 

2. Natural tendencies need to be regulated. Cer- 
tain souls are impetuous and rash ; others are slug- 
gish and passive — the one class needing to be 
checked, the other excited. Then we have the 
happiness instinct, seeking to turn virtue into 
enjoyment ; the love of fame and the love of 
power; the possessory principle and self-love: to 
shape and turn these will demand effort. Our 
greatest powers are our greatest danger. The soul 
that can be eternally saved is the soul that can 
be eternally lost. It is a fearful thing to be a 
man. 

3. Certain tendencies of the age need to be 
resisted. There is a materialistic drift which is 



SA NOTIFICATION. 181 

destructive of all good, and it must be opposed. 
There is a rationalistic tendency which is irrational ; 
it must be met by the authority of God. The 
attempt to soften the severe aspects of divine truth 
and the Divine Being is not to be countenanced. 
Sin and Justice are stern realities, even though 
Mercy has in her hand the cup of salvation. 

IV. Sanctification gained by Dikect Ef- 
forts. 

There are five states of mind in regenerate man 
which form the groundwork of sanctification. 

First, there is a penitential state ; secondly, a 
state which is of the essence of prayer ; thirdly, a 
state of faith ; fourthly, a state of love ; fifthly, a 
state of obedience. 

The Christian souHs never without anyone of 
these spiritual states. If they are properly devel- 
oped they will end in perfection. Cultivating holy 
frames of mind is the surest and quickest way of 
attaining holiness. Acts will come forth like gold 
coin from the mint when the frames of mind are 
pure and fervent. Of course we must attend to 
individual duties, and must see that they appear at 
the right time and have the exact weight which the 
law of God requires. We are to aim at singleness 
of holy quality in actions — that is, that they be 
not mixed with secondary or sinful motives. Every 
Christian grace also must beautify the soul as with 
the gems of heaven. There must be humility, sub- 



182 THEOLOGY. 

mission, tenderness, long-suffering, self-control, be- 
nevolence, meekness, heavenly-mindedness. The 
positive virtues must all come forth like stars. We 
are not to be satisfied with supreme love to God, 
thinking that that is the fulfilling of the law. 
When love has the governing power it is called 
supreme. It must go so far, however, as to Jill the 
soul ; then it will be the love of totality, and not 
mere supremacy. Sanctification must spread over 
all the faculties; the very essence of the mind must 
be holiness. 

V. Is Sinless Perfection attainable in the 
Present Life. 
The majority of Christians believe that no sin- 
less man has appeared since the fall of Adam ex- 
cept " the man Christ Jesus." Persons noted for 
piety are conscious of indwelling sin. The Bible 
addresses those who are sinful. The exhortations, 
commands and warnings are for imperfect men. 
The prayers and promises are for men struggling to 
be holy. " We have an advocate with the Father " 
because we sin. The entire apparatus of salvation 
is for sinners. This of course does not imply that 
men are excusable when they come short of per- 
fection, or that they are necessitated to sin. Every 
human being is under obligation to be perfectly 
holy, but the life does not correspond with the ob- 
ligation. That it is our duty to keep God's law is 
no evidence that some do keep it. 



SANCTIFICATION. 183 

Certain pious men affirm that entire sanctification 
is reached by an instantaneous act of faith. We 
call in question this affirmation. It is easy to be 
mistaken in regard to a matter that has so many 
particulars. Christians may attain to a state of 
assurance by an act of faith, and, being enraptured 
with the peace and joy which flow from this assur- 
ance, they may imagine it to be sanctification itself 
when it is not. The work of sanctification is pro- 
gressive as far as we know. Men must understand 
the entire range of duty before they can do it ; and 
to gain such knowledge requires time. We are to 
" grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ " (2 Pet, iii. 18); " The 
path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." Prov. iv. 18. 
We admit that at the moment of death the believer 
is perfected in holiness by an instantaneous act of 
the Divine Spirit, but why he should wait till that 
particular time before he effects a complete cure in 
souls we do not know. Our view of God's grace 
leads us to see divine sovereignty in sanctification 
as well as in regeneration. 



184 THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS— THE SPIRIT 
NEVER LEAVES THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 

Two kinds of passages are addressed to Chris- 
tians in the Bible — one kind seeming to intimate 
that they may be lost, and the other that they will 
be saved. Take these verses as samples: "We 
ought to give the more earnest heed to the things 
which we have heard, lest at any time we should 
let them slip " (Heb. ii. 1) ; " My sheep hear my 
voice, and I know them, and they follow me : and 
I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never 
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of 
my hand/' John x. 27, 28. The difference in these 
two passages is a difference of standpoint. The first 
is only seemingly against the perseverance of the 
saints ; the second is directly in favor of that per- 
severance. Certain admissions, however, may be 
made. 

1. The way to heaven is one of danger. If the 
Christian has holiness in his heart, he has also sin ; 
and that sin he must fight against. " The world, 
the flesh and the devil " are striving to ruin him : 
he must overcome these. The passage sounds in 
his ear : " He that endureth to the end shall be 
saved." Matt. x. 22. It is only with the utmost 
difficulty that one can reach heaven. The incite- 
ments and warnings, therefore, instead of showing 



PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS. 185 

that the Christian may be lost, are the means by 
which he is saved. Paul stated to those in the ves- 
sel with him that there should be no loss of any 
man's life, but when he saw the sailors attempting 
to escape, he said, " Except these abide in the ship, 
ye cannot be saved." Acts xxvii. 31. Certain 
things must be done if all were to reach the land 
in safety. 

Although eternal life is sure to the Christian, he 
must so run that he shall obtain it. 

When the Bible announces that a man is justified 
by faith, the understanding is that the faith neces- 
sitates good works. Although the decree of elec- 
tion makes it certain that the people of God shall 
be saved, they do not ground their salvation on 
that decree, as they have no means of knowing it ; 
but they ground it on their faith in Christ ; and in 
order to be sure in the matter, they judge of the 
soundness of their faith by the soundness of their 
life. The pious man feels that he must use every 
power of his mind in the service of Christ, just as 
if his soul's salvation depended upon his own 
efforts. No religious person will take advantage 
of any phase of truth for the purpose of encour- 
aging laxity in life. The idea of a Christian is 
that of one who is struggling to be perfectly holy. 
No one can embrace sin and embrace the Saviour 
at the same time. 

2. The Christian would certainly fall aivay and 
be lost for ever if God were to leave him to himself. 



186 THEOLOGY. 

Let the Divine Spirit retire from the earth, and all 
would sink to ruin. The strongly Calvinistic "Can- 
ons of Dort " say plainly that " by reason of the re- 
mains of indwelling sin, and the temptations of sin 
and of the world, those who are converted could 
not persevere in a state of grace if left to them- 
selves."* This, however, is merely hypothetical. 
" God hath not cast away his people which he 
foreknew." Rom. xi. 2. 

3. The disciple of Christ has natural power to 
commit any sin. The Christian father has power 
to kill his entire family as truly as godless persons 
have, but he has no heart to do such things. It 
is morally impossible for him to act in the way 
supposed. " Whosoever is born of God doth not 
commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him : and 
he cannot sin, because he is born of God." 1 John 
iii. 9. 

4. Persons who to all appearance were Chris- 
tians have at last lost their souls. As far as these 
individuals were known by others — and, it may be, 
by themselves — they were thought of as converted, 
and yet they were not converted. They were 
simply the stony-ground hearers who appeared 
well for a time. When temptations came their 
surface piety fell to pieces. Many such persons 
have been in the Church, and they are cited as 
proofs of falling from grace. We cannot accept 
such evidence. " They went out from us, but 

* Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. p. 523. 



PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS. 187 

they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, 
they would no doubt have continued with us." 1 
John ii. 19. 

We admit that the regenerate sometimes com- 
mit great sin, but it is certain that they will con- 
fess and forsake their sin. The heartfelt penitence 
of David and of Peter is evidence that the princi- 
ple of grace was not lost in these men. The in- 
stant they saw their wickedness they turned to 
God. It is in this readiness to own their guilt 
that we behold the outworking of a nature that 
is still regenerate. Unconverted men may com- 
mit the same sins as the king of Israel and the 
apostle of Christ, but they have no such spirit 
of penitence as they manifested. If a professed 
Christian fall into evil, and continue in it in spite 
of all warnings to the contrary, assuredly he was 
never born of the Spirit. The determination to 
hold on to one sin proves the person a hypocrite. 

We meet, however, with this objection : "As 
Adam and the angels fell, so Christians may be 
expected to fall. If perfectly holy beings sinned 
and lost everything, how much more may the 
partially sanctified sin and lose everything!" At 
first sight the argument is plausible, but it proves 
too much. It forces us to believe that not a single 
child of God will reach heaven, because, if the ar- 
gument is sound, since perfect creatures lost all, the 
probabilities are increased a thousand-fold that im- 
perfect creatures will lose all, If salvation by grace 



188 THEOLOGY. 

is not different, in some new and high sense, from 
salvation by law, then we are all doomed. 

Let what follows be noted. 

When a holy being sins for the first time he loses 
all goodness. The first sin affects the entire spirit- 
ual nature ; there is nothing but total depravity ; 
the fallen creature will sin for ever. Now, when 
a regenerate man sins the first time after his con- 
version, he does not lose all goodness. If he did 
lose all goodness by simply committing one sin, 
then after that one sin he could not perform a 
single holy act, because there is no holy disposition 
in the soul to lead in that direction. It is a fact, 
however, that the holy disposition is not lost by 
the first sin committed after conversion. Here, 
then, is a point that we ought to look at. Why 
should the holy nature of a Christian remain when 
he falls, while the holy nature of Adam and the 
angels did not remain when they fell ? It is evi- 
dent that creatures are different as to their charac- 
ter under the remedial influence of mercy from 
creatures under the retributive influence of law. 

But if the holy disposition of the Christian is 
not lost by the commission of the first sin after re- 
generation, how is it by the commission of the second, 
third or fourth sin ? We know that it is not lost 
even then. The best of men sin every day, and 
yet the principle of regeneration abides. Adam 
and the angels were lost by one sin, but pious men 
are not lost by many sins. If the latter were in 



PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS, 189 

the same hopeless state as the former, they would 
need to be regenerated after the commission of each 
sin, and so they would be converted hundreds of 
times during a year. One regeneration, however, 
is all that is wanted. 

We have this additional thought : The strength 
of the divine principle is seen, not simply from the 
fact that it remains after all the assaults of sin and 
temptation, but from this other fact, that it posi- 
tively overcomes sin and temptation and extends 
the area of goodness. When this divine principle 
is introduced into the heart it does not find there a 
righteousness ready to receive it. A vast number of 
acts of holiness, therefore, have to be performed for 
the first time. Sins that have been usually com- 
mitted are now set aside, and deeds of love take 
their place. Evil habits also give way before those 
that are good. It is clear that holiness is no mere 
exotic from a tropical clime, which must wither the 
moment sin strikes it. Like the symbolic tree of 
life which grows in heaven, it yields its fruit every 
month, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations. 

There is no way of accounting for the stability 
of a holy disposition in the regenerate except by the 
special intervention of God. Since the Divine 
Spirit used great effort to lead a man to Christ, 
holding on to him though resisted at every step, 
and finally overcoming his opposition by the om- 
nipotency of love, there is no reason why he should 
leave him at the point of conversion. As repent- 

13 



1 90 THEOLOGY. 

anee and faith are the gifts of God, so perseverance 
and purity are his gifts. He begins, carries for- 
ward and finishes the work of grace in the soul. 
" Whom he did predestinate, them he also called : 
and whom he called, them he also justified : and 
whom he justified, them he also glorified. What 
shall we then say to these things? If God be for 
us, who can be against us?" Rom. viii. 30, 31. 
One step leads to the other. Even in the first ac- 
ceptance of Christ there is an element of finality. 
As all men fell by the first Adam, so all believers 
stand secure in the second Adam. If eternal sal- 
vation rests ultimately with the Christian, he can- 
not be sure but that he will be lost. " He is kept, 
however, by the power of God through faith unto 
salvation." 1 Pet. i. 5. 

Dr. Pope, the distinguished Methodist theologian, 
is willing to go as far as this : " However viewed, 
the grace of Christ toward his own, and the power 
of the Holy Spirit within them, go far to secure 
absolutely the final salvation of the regenerate. 
The surpassing and unlimited love of the Redeemer, 
the reluctance of the Spirit to forsake the work of 
his hands, the growing blessedness of true religion, 
the might of intercessory prayer both divine and 
human, the feebleness of the Lord's enemies in 
comparison of his lightest influence, — all conspire 
to show that the utter relapse and final ruin of a 
regenerate soul is a hard possibility" * 

* Compendium of Theology, vol. iii. p. 135. 



PAET V. 

DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE LAST THINGS. 



CHAPTER I. 



STATE OF SOULS BETWEEN DEATH AND THE 
RESURRECTION. 

DOES the soul sleep after death ? The follow- 
ing passages are quoted as proof : " Now shall 
I sleep in the dust" (Job vii. 21); " Lighten mine 
eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death " (Ps. xiii. 3) ; 
"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth 
shall awake" (Dan. xii. 2); "Our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth " (John xi. 11); "Them which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him." 1 Thess. iv. 14. 
The word " sleep " in these verses is taken literally, 
whereas the majority of readers, who understand 
the common usage of language, take it figuratively. 
When we sing the hymn, "Asleep in Jesus, blessed 
sleep," we never imagine that the person who is 
dead is really asleep. Death is frightful to the most 
of men, and the tendency is to use figurative ex- 
pressions when speaking of it. Hence persons pre- 

191 



192 THEOLOGY. 

fer to say that they lost a friend, rather than to say 
that the friend is dead. We speak also of the de- 
parted. This is scriptural. Paul says, " The time of 
my departure is at hand." 2 Tim. iv. 6. Moses and 
Elias spake of Christ's " decease f that is, of his 
departure— m Greek exodon, exodus. If we are 
gazing at one who has just ceased to breathe, we 
say, " He is gone;" perhaps adding the words, 
"gone to his long home." All this is natural, and 
there is no need of misunderstanding such a com- 
mon style of language. To believe that all the 
dead of past generations are in a state of uncon- 
sciousness is a dismal thought. Such a blank ex- 
istence for hundreds or thousands of years, even 
of the wisest and best of men, is contrarv to the 
analogy of nature. 

There is another view which has been forcing 
itself into notice by a class of Second Adventists — 
namely, this : that man has no soul separate from 
the body ; he is wholly material. To be made in 
the image of God is to be " made in his external 
likeness." The Divine Being has a "personal 
form," has eyes and ears, hands and feet. The 
word " spirit " means wind, so man is material ; and 
God being a spirit, he also is material. When it 
is said, " The Lord God formed man of the dust of 
the ground " (Gen. ii. 7), that is understood to teach 
that man is nothing but matter. The penalty of 
the law is temporal death. When men are dead 
they are out of existence, annihilated. With such 



STATE OF SOULS AFTER DEATH. 193 

a view there is no sleep of the soul ; there is no 
immaterial soul that can sleep. Thus the rank 
materialism of the unbeliever is presented to us as 
if it were the teaching of Scripture. Vogt, that 
prince of skeptics, says : " The existence of a soul 
which uses the brain as an instrument with which 
to work as it pleases is utter nonsense. Physiology 
distinctly and categorically pronounces against any 
individual immortality, and against all ideas which 
are connected with the figment of a separate exist- 
ence of the soul." * It is remarkable that profess- 
edly religious men should join hands with those 
who reject all religion. With such a theory there 
is no need of any atonement, because each man sat- 
isfies the law by suffering the penalty of death. In 
fact, there is no sin which calls for an atonement, 
because if man is simply material sin is nothing 
but disease, and what he needs is a physician, not 
a Saviour. More than this, the theory destroys the 
very existence of God, because if the Deity is ma- 
terial he is limited, is not self-sufficient, is not free. 
" The word ruah occurs three hundred and sev- 
enty-eight times in the Hebrew Scriptures of the 
Old Testament, and, after carefully examining all 
these passages in their connections, we are prepared 
to assert that it is most commonly to be rendered 
either wind or spirit" . . . " The Hebrew word 
nephesh occurs five hundred and seventy-four times 
in the Old-Testament books, and it should be trans- 
* Quoted in Christlieb's Modern Doubt, p. 146. 



194 THEOLOGY. 

lated breath once ; perfume once : creature eighteen 
times ; person two hundred and one times ; body 
twenty-six times ; life one hundred and seventy-five 
times; vital principle sixty-one times; mind two 
hundred and eight times ; feeling fifty-three times ; 
self ten times." * That nephesh means the imma- 
terial soul can be seen by a glance at this passage : 
" Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, 
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 
Mic. vi. 7. Here it is put in contrast with the 
body. 

The true view of the state of the soul after 
death is this : As there are two classes of men, 
the good and the bad, so there are two places, one 
of blessedness and one of misery, to which souls 
go as character determines. Paul says : " We are 
confident, and willing rather to be absent from the 
body, and to be present with the Lord/' 2 Cor. v. 
8. To be present with the Lord can mean nothing 
less than to be in heaven. " I am in a strait be- 
twixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with 
Christ; which is far better." Eph. i. 23. To be 
with Christ cannot mean to be asleep or to be out 
of existence. When the godly Stephen prayed, 
" Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts vii. 29), 
the fair inference is that his spirit went to Jesus. 
The Saviour said to the penitent robber, " To-day 
shalt thou be with me in paradise." Luke xxiii. 43. 

* Eev. William H. Cobb, Biblioth. Sacra, vol. xxxvii. pp. 136, 

138. 



STATE OF SOULS AFTER DEATH. 195 

Paradise must have the same meaning as heaven, 
for Paul calls it the third heaven, where he " heard 
things that were unutterable." 2 Cor. xii. 4. The 
third heaven was understood by the Jews to be 
the dwelling-place of God. The reward granted 
to the victorious Christian is that he will " eat of 
the tree of life, which is in the midst of the para- 
dise of God." Eev. ii. 7. Paradise does not seem 
to be any middle place where the righteous dwell 
till the morning of the resurrection. The Epistle 
to the Hebrews states that in the heavenly Jerusa- 
lem are found " an innumerable company of angels," 
"God the Judge of all," " the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of the new 
covenant." Heb. xii. 22-24. Then we have that 
striking passage in the book of Revelation : u I 
saw under the altar the souls of them that were 
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony 
which they held : and they cried with a loud voice, 
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell 
on the earth ?" Rev. vi. 9, 10. " Here are seen 
under the altar — i. e. at the foot of it — in implor- 
ing attitude, the souls of men already slain for their 
fidelity to Christ and his gospel. It seemed to 
them that truth was suffering, that Christ's king- 
dom was going down, that justice was outraged, 
by the longer permission of such horrible persecu- 
tions, and even by the delay of righteous retribu- 
tion upon their murderers, God heard their cry 



196 THEOLOGY. 

and answered."* That beautiful verse which is 
often used at funerals is full of heavenly meaning : 
" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
rest from their labors ; and their works do follow 
them." Rev. xiv. 13. That is, from the moment 
of death they are in a state of blessedness. Turn- 
ing now to the parable of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus, we learn that the rich man after death 
was in torment, while Lazarus was in the bosom 
of Abraham. 

The Irish Articles of Religion (a. d. 1615) have 
these words : "After this life is ended the souls of 
God's children be presently received into heaven, 
there to enjoy unspeakable comforts ; the souls 
of the wicked are cast into hell, there to endure 
eternal torments." f The Westminster Confession 
of Faith (a. d. 1647) has a fuller statement: "The 
bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see 
corruption ; but their souls (which neither die nor 
sleep), having an immortal subsistence, immediate- 
ly return to God who gave them. The souls of 
the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, 
are received into the highest heavens, where they 
behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting 
for the full redemption of their bodies : and the 
souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they 
remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved 

*Cowles, Notes on the Book of Revelation, p. 101. 
f Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii. p. 543. 



STATE OF SOULS AFTER DEATH. 197 

to the judgment of the great day. Besides these 
two places for souls separated from their bodies, 
the Scripture acknowledgeth none."* 

There is danger in taking up with a middle place 
where souls are to remain till the resurrection. 
Once advocate the notion that there is an interme- 
diate place, which is neither heaven nor hell, and it 
will not be long before men will make it a training- 
school where souls are fitted for the skies, made 
ready for heaven's blessedness. 

AVill there be a probation after death for those 
persons who were destitute of the knowledge of 
Christ in the present life ? Xo. The Bible makes 
it plain that salvation is confined to the earth and 
time. There is not an instance in Scripture of a 
man's repenting in perdition. " Their worm dieth 
not, and the fire is not quenched w (Mark ix. 44) ; 
" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor 
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou 
goest "" (Eecles. ix. 10); "As many as have sinned 
without law shall also perish without law." Horn. 
ii. 12. The heathen know vastly more than they 
practice. They are condemned by their own con- 
science, and why should they not be condemned by 
a holy and just God ? They are spoken of as 
" guilty " and as " without excuse." It is not so 
much the want of knowledge that condemns men 
as it is the want of a right state of mind. If an 

* Schaff. Creech qf Christendom, vol, iii. p. 670, 



1 98 THEOLOGY. 

African or a Hindoo has " a broken and a contrite 
heart, God will not despise " him. 

No argument for a future probation can be based 
on the difficult passage where it is stated that Christ 
" w T ent and preached unto the spirits in prison." 1 
Pet. iii. 19. We know that the Saviour after his 
death went to " paradise," and not to the place of 
the lost. Besides, there is an impassable gulf which 
separates the good from the bad, thus leaving no 
way by which the knowledge of salvation can be 
conveyed to the wicked. As far as the ungodly 
are concerned who were swept away by the Flood, 
they are spoken of as " reserved unto the day of 
judgment to be punished " (2 Pet. ii. 9), showing 
that for them there is no hope. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MILLENNIUM. 

The word " millennium " has reference to the 
thousand years of exalted life mentioned in the 
twentieth chapter of the Revelation. It was 
thought by some in the early Church that these 
thousand years began with Christ and would close 
with the tenth century, the end of the world being 
then expected. This is one extreme. Another ex- 
treme is to place the millennium "offer the judg- 
ment — to hold that after the Bridegroom comes and 



THE MILLENNIUM. J 99 

the beloved city is completed Christ shall move his 
saints home, and live and reign with them in the 
new heaven and new earth." * 

The more common view of the Church is that 
the millennium refers to a time in the future when 
the Christian religion shall have the ascendency in 
all countries. As the exalted Christian dwells for 
a season in the " Land Beulah " before the journey 
ends, so the exalted Church dwells for a season in 
the Land Beulah before the present dispensation 
closes. 

Martensen throws out a speculation of this char- 
acter : u As the millennial reign is an actual prophecy 
of the glory of perfection, nature also will exhibit 
prophetic indications, anticipating its future glori- 
fication ; and though Christ will not be raised up 
in a literal and sensitive manner to his kingly do- 
minion, yet his presence will not be merely spiritual ; 
visible manifestations of Christ will, during this 
period, be granted to the faithful, like those to the 
disciples after the resurrection. According to this 
view, the thousand years' reign would correspond 
with the interval of forty days between the resur- 
rection and the ascension — an interval which im- 
plies the transition from earthly existence to heav- 
enly glory." f 

The Scriptures point out with fullness of state- 
ment the blessed age. That blessed age is to us 

* Millers Lectures on the Second Coming of Christ, p. 236, 
f Christ inn Dogmatics, p. 471. 



200 THEOLOGY. 

the chief thing, and not the technical number, a 
thousand years. Whether the thousand years are 
to be understood literally or as expressive of an in- 
definite number we need not be anxious to inquire. 
Persons may find themselves in the millennium 
without knowing when it began, and persons may 
find themselves out of the millennium without 
knowing when it ended. 

1. It is remarkable that it is the prophets of the 
Jewish dispensation who speak of a time when all 
nations shall be blessed.* That the men were 
Jews, natives of a small country, and their religion 
chiefly confined to that country, makes it strange 
that they should mark out so distinctly a time when 
both Jews and Gentiles would be happy in the Lord. 
Then, too, what is noteworthy, they were generally 
in the midst of darkness and discouragement when 
they penned the words relating to the bright future. 
If the logic of surrounding events had influenced 
them, they would have thought of ruin. 

2. It is equally strange that the descriptions of 
the blessed age should be found in the Old Testa- 
ment, and not in the New. We should have 
thought that the New Testament would be the 
book that would be radiant with such descriptions. 
The Christian dispensation, with its one atonement, 
one religion for all mankind and one mission of the 
Spirit, is the final dispensation. The canon of 

* I am indebted to Isaac Taylor for many of the thoughts of 
this chapter. 



THE MILLENNIUM. 201 

Scripture is also closed with the New Testament. 
Surely, then, the bright revelations of the period 
of universal good shall be found there. Not so. 
Our skill in thinking what the Bible should be is 
no better than our skill in thinking what the crea- 
tion should be. 

3. The prophetic utterances respecting the time 
we call the millennium relate chiefly to collections 
of men. We behold nations, the world, in a state 
of life. " The earth shall be full of the knowledge 
of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Isa. xi. 
9. Here the people are massed together, the ocean 
being; the svmbol. The national idea is brought 
out in this passage: "All kings shall fall down be- 
fore him : all nations shall serve him." Ps. Ixxii. 
11. The New Testament is more individual than 
the Old. Our personality is struck by the w'ords, 
" Repent, every one of you." 

4. When the prophets speak of the Church of 
the future they point to time and this earth, and not 
to eternity and heaven. The New Testament is re- 
markable for its vast sweep of thought : we are 
made to think of the totality of existence. " We 
look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen : for the things which are 
seen are temporal ; but the things which are not 
seen are eternal." 2 Cor. iv. 18. The Old Testa- 
ment is singular in its long lines of earthly vision. 
This arose in part from the many temporal rewards 
and punishments which came to the Jews. Still, 



202 THEOLOGY. 

the Old Testament has its passages relating to eter- 
nity and heaven : " I shall be satisfied, when I 
awake, with thy likeness" (Ps. xvii. 15) ; "They 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the fir- 
mament ; and they that turn many to righteousness, 
as the stars for ever and ever." Dan. xii. 3. 

5. The modern watchword of universal brother- 
hood is a biblical thought. " Humanity," says 
Max Miiller, " is a word which you look for in 
vain in Plato or Aristotle ; the idea of mankind 
as one family, as the children of one God, is an 
idea of Christian growth ; and the science of 
mankind and of the languages of mankind is a 
science which, without Christianity, would never 
have sprung into life. When people had been 
taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, 
and then only, did the variety of human speech 
present itself as a problem that called for a solu- 
tion in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and I 
therefore date the real beginning of the science 
of language from the first day of Pentecost."* 

6. During the millennium righteousness shall 
generally prevail. " From the rising of the sun 
even unto the going down of the same, my name 
shall be great among the Gentiles • and in every 
place incense shall be offered unto my name, and 
a pure offering : for my name shall be great among 
the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts " (Mai. i. 11); 
" Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the 

* Science of Language, p. 1 28. 



THE MILLENNIUM. 203 

fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all 
Israel shall be saved." Rom. xi. 25, 26. "The 
' fullness J of the Gentiles constitutes a definite 
but immense number whom God foreknew, called 
and justified in the manner previously described 
by the apostle. St. Paul here asserts the Chris- 
tianization of the globe prior to the Christianiza- 
tion of the Jews. In neither case, however, is it 
necessary to suppose the regeneration of every 
individual without exception. Yet the terms full- 
ness and all y applied to the elect, imply that the 
non-elect will be comparatively Few." * That the 
world is to be converted may look to the skeptical 
mind as a pleasant dream. The Church of God, 
however, goes forward in its work of evangeliza- 
tion, believing that the grain of mustard-seed is 
to become a great tree. When all things are fully 
prepared there will doubtless be unusual manifes- 
tations of the Divine Spirit, by which means mil- 
lions will come to Christ at once. If three thou- 
sand persons were converted by the one sermon of 
Peter, what may we not expect when the gospel is 
preached in its purity and power all over the 
earth ? " The Spirit is to be poured out upon 
all flesh " in a way that we have never seen. 
False systems will assuredly break up when the 
millennium appears, and persons will outwardly, 
if not inwardly, fall in with the religion of Christ. 
Although Christians at that time will not be sinless, 
* Shedd, Commentary on Bomans, p. 347. 



204 THEOLOGY. 

they will possess a high degree of holiness; and 
so, as they live near to God, they will be instru- 
mental in turning many to righteousness. The 
very conversion of the Jews will react upon the 
Gentiles, and a great wealth of spiritual life will 
be the result. 

7. The time will be one of great happiness. 
" The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and 
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon 
their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, 
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isa. 
xxxv. 10. How 7 soft and beautiful is such lan- 
guage ! The people seem to " summer in bliss 
upon the hills of God." Joy as a queen sits 
enthroned in the hearts of men, and the Sabbath 
of souls has come with its smile. Each one seems 
to be sitting by a lake where all is peace, sitting in 
an arbor where all is love, or pleasantly walking 
through the gardens and groves of the saved — 
walking amidst the radiance and glory of the 
eternal morning. The happiness of those years 
is connected with God. "The sun shall be no 
more thy light by day ; neither for brightness 
shall the moon give light unto thee: but the 
Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and 
thy God thy glory." Isa. lx. 19. One listens 
to such language as he listens to music at night — 
attentive to the sound and wishing that it may 
be continued. 

8. A golden age is the prophetic idea of that 



THE MILLENNIUM. 205 

future time. The joyous days when Adam and Eve 
were in Paradise appear to be restored. Innocence 
and love, simplicity and peace, mark the hours. 
There is nothing that will harm. The very beasts 
lose their wildness. "The wolf shall dwell with 
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fat- 
ling together ; and a little child shall lead them." 
Isa. xi. 6. That there is poetry about such pictures 
is to be admitted. There is an attempt to represent 
the ideal. The mind is struggling to shape to it- 
self a golden age, and consequently nature is made 
to yield up its treasures in order to give form to the 
conception. The luminaries of heaven act a part ; 
the hills sing with gladness; the trees clap their 
hands. The earth is to be a glorious earth, and all 
things are to be gilded with the joys of the Lord. 

At the end of the thousand years there is to be 
an outbreak of evil. " Satan shall be loosed out 
of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the na- 
tions w T hich are in the four quarters of the earth, 
Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle : 
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and 
compassed the camp of the saints about, and the 
beloved city : and fire came down from God out of 
heaven, and devoured them." Rev. xx. 7-9. Hard- 
ened men, leagued with Satan and led on by him, 
are to assail the good. This is to be the last -strug- 
gle — fierce, but short. At the very time when the 

14 



206 THEOLOGY. 

wicked are heated and hurried forward with malice 
they are struck down by the judgments of God. 
Then comes the end here : the endless is in the 
great Hereafter. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SECOND COMING OF CHBIST, 

There are comings of Christ which are not 
visible. " When they persecute you in this city, 
flee ye into another : for verily J say unto you, Ye 
shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till 
the Son of man be come " (Matt. x. 23) ; " There 
be some standing here, which shall not taste of 
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his 
kingdom." Matt. xvi. 28. These verses cannot 
apply to the second coming of Christ. Whether 
they point to a special judgment or mercy is of no 
great importance. History, at any rate, has its 
comings of Christ in both judgment and mercy, 
and these are typical of the final advent of the Son 
of God. 

Christ is to come in great glory, with the collect- 
ive hosts of heaven around him. Thus the second 
advent will be in marked contrast with the first, one 
being noted for its servant-like state and circum- 
stances, and the other for its royalty and splendor. 

Attempts have been made to fix the time when 



SECOND ADVENT. 207 

Christ shall come, but all such attempts have failed. 
It is the fact that he will come we are to look at, 
and not the year, month or week. " Of that day 
and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels 
which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Fa- 
ther." Mark xiii. 32. Such a passage ought to 
check all speculations touching the time of the 
second advent. " While it is right and proper for 
Christians in this age of the world to observe the 
signs of the times, and endeavor to gird up their 
loins and watch for the coming of the Lord, it is 
an evidence of shallowness and cause of much evil- 
speaking when at every political event, supposed 
to be very great because very near the observer, 
they give forth a new calculation to fix the date 
when the dispensation will come to a close. Un- 
believers are indeed ready to scoif at the purest 
profession of faith in God, but disciples should 
beware lest they give adversaries occasion to repeat 
their sneers. The prophecies of Scripture reveal 
the coming event, and keep it before us like a star 
in the firmament, but they do not inform us how 
near it is." It may seem to manifest strong faith 
for a man to say he does not expect to die, but ex- 
pects to live till Christ comes ; and yet it is a fair 
question whether it would not show as much piety 
to be more modest, especially since so many enthu- 
siastic persons have been compelled to die without 
seeing their Lord. 

Eager and penetrating men tell us that the pres- 



208 THEOLOGY. 

ent decline in religion is evidence that Christ is 
about to come. But we may question the assertion 
on which their argument stands. Christianity in 
England, Germany and America during the last 
century was in a worse state than it is at present. 
However imperfect religion may be (and it is im- 
perfect), there is more of it just now than in any 
age of the past. If one wants to see decline in 
religion, why not look at the Dark Ages? Yet 
Christ did not appear then — did not appear even 
though expectant men thought he would. In fact, 
every Christian century has had its season of decay. 
Even the first age, with its personal Saviour, in- 
spired apostles and array of miracles, had an eclipse 
of the faith. Sunshine and shadow mark the his- 
tory of the Church of Christ. It is one of the 
mysterious things that good men have been so im- 
perfect. 

1. Redemption ends when Christ comes. The 
passages which imply this are many. We select 
these: " Occupy till I come " (Luke xix. 13); 
u Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought 
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ " (1 Pet. 
i. 13) ; "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world " (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20) ; " For as 



SECOND ADVENT. 209 

often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye 
do show the Lord's death till he come" 1 Cor. xi. 
26. Thus the second coming of Christ is the 
end of the means of grace and the end of the 
Spirit's striving with men. 

2. The righteous and the wicked will be raised 
when Christ comes. " The hour is coming, in the 
which all that are in the graves shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done 
good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that 
have done evil, unto the resurrection of damna- 
tion." John v. 28, 29. However long or short 
the " hour " of the resurrection may be, it is dur- 
ing the passage of it that all the dead arise. 

3. The final judgment takes place when Christ 
comes. The tares and wheat are to grow together 
till the harvest. Then the tares are burned and 
the wheat is preserved. Thus the destiny of the 
righteous and the wicked is settled at that time. 
In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew the good 
are ranged on the right hand and the bad on the 
left. The one class enter into eternal life, and the 
other class are consigned to eternal punishment. 
" We mast all appear before the judgment-seat 
of Christ ; that every one may receive the things 
done in his body, according to that he hath done, 
whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. v. 10. 

4. The heavens and the earth shall be burned up 
when Christ comes. " The day of the Lord will 
come as a thief in the night; in the which the 



210 THEOLOGY. 

heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and 
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the 
earth also and the works that are therein shall 
be burned up." 2 Pet. iii. 10. 

The pious men of the Old Testament looked 
forward to the first coming of Christ, and the 
pious men of the New Testament look forward 
to the second coming of Christ. The first advent 
crowns and ends the Jewish dispensation, and the 
second advent crowns and ends the Christian dis- 
pensation. The faith of the early Christians, as 
it centred in the crucified Redeemer, soon became 
hope in the glorified Redeemer. Some of them 
had either seen him or they conversed with men 
who had, and so he was near to them. The union 
of the disciples with their Master was so close that 
their identity seemed lost in his wondrous person- 
ality. Their life was hid with Christ. 

As we read over the New Testament it would 
seem as if the second advent were a kind of uni- 
versal motive. It is fastened to every phase of 
Christian experience and every change of outward 
condition. "Be patient, brethren, unto the com- 
ing of the Lord " (James v. 7) ; "And this know, 
that if the good man of the house had known what 
hour the thief would come, he would have watched, 
and not have suffered his house to be broken through. 
Be ye therefore ready also : for the Son of man 
cometh at an hour when ye think not." Luke xii. 
39, 40. Appeals, encouragements, exhortations and 



SECOND ADVENT. 211 

warnings are confined to the time that precedes the 
second advent. If men are to be fitted for heaven 
after our Lord has come, they will need a new 
Bible. 

The second coming of Christ is evidently viewed 
as the climax of all good. Matters will then be 
settled, troubles banished, hopes realized. The 
distance between the first and second advent is 
not thought of: the one is brought near to the 
other. The mind is full of emotion, and through 
the medium of that emotion it darts ahead, only 
eager to behold "the glorious appearing of the 
great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ." It is 
the nature of love to sweep away the boundaries 
of time and space, " hasting" to reach the ador- 
able One in whom is found all its joy. 

Van Oosterzee has this reasonable thought : 
"That our Lord constantly represents his future 
coming as very near at hand was the natural con- 
sequence of the prophetic mode of view, in which 
the difference of time and space is thrown into the 
background. It was also practically necessary, if 
the exhortation to watchfulness and labor was to 
receive its highest impressiveness from the relative 
nearness of a decisive future, to come when not 
expected." . . . " The exact fixing of the time 
was not, in the view of our Lord, the main thing, 
so much as the lively exhibition of the fact of his 
approaching manifestation. The repeated references 
to this fact stood directly connected with the con- 



212 THEOLOGY. 

solation and sanctification of his disciples, at which 
from first to last he principally aimed." * 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE KESURKECTION OF THE DEAD. 

The doctrine of the resurrection teaches that 
man as such is to exist as a complex being for 
ever. The human reason can give no informa- 
tion on this subject. The Bible alone reveals it. 
"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all 
be made alive" (1 Cor. xv. 22); " There shall 
be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and 
unjust" (Acts xxiv. 15); "I delivered unto you 
first of all that which I also received, how that 
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures : 
and that he was buried, and that he rose again the 
third day according to the Scriptures : and that he 
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : after that, 
he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; 
of whom the greater part remain unto this present, 
but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen 
of James; then of all the apostles. And last of 
all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of 
due time." 1 Cor. xv. 3-7. If Christ has risen 
from the dead, that settles the matter. If there 
is no resurrection, Christianity is a fiction. 
* Biblical Theology of the New Testament, pp. 78, 79. 



THE RESURRECTION. 213 

I. Two Leading Objections. 

1. It is affirmed by some persons that when a 
person dies he enters eternity with a body, and that 
that is the resurrection. This theory supposes that 
each man has two bodies — one of gross material , 
and the other finer. The fine body is next to the 
soul, and with that it enters the immortal state at 
death, needing no other for ever. This is the view 
of the Swedenborgians and some of the Spiritual- 
ists. There is no evidence, however, that such a 
spirit-body exists. Some of the ancient philoso- 
phers speculated in regard to the existence of such 
an airy kind of body. " They conceived this spir- 
ituous body to hang about the soul in this life as its 
anterior induement or vestment, which then sticks to 
it when that other gross earthly part of the body is, 
by death, put off as an outer garment." They even 
thought that there is " a third kind of body, of a 
higher rank than either of the former, peculiarly 
belonging to such souls after death as are cleansed 
from corporeal affections, lusts and passions, called 
by them a luciform, celestial and ethereal body." * 

Even if we believe that the soul has a body in 
which it lives after death, what has that to do with 
the resurrection of the dead ? It has nothing to do 
with it. The scriptural idea of the resurrection is 
not that of a soul going into eternity with a body 
which it always had. If such were the true idea, 
the resurrection is past to all who have died. The 
* Cud worth's Intellectual System, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223. 



214 THEOLOGY. 

Bible, however, speaks of the resurrection as future: 
it takes place at the end of the world. The point 
is also mentioned that the dead are to come out of 
their graves. But there is no grave to come out of 
if the spirit-body is the only one which the soul 
shall ever possess. The most dangerous thing, 
however, about this theory is, that it leads to the 
denial of Christ's resurrection, for if the body that 
dies is not raised again, then Christ is not risen. 

2. The other objection is, that the bodies of the 
living have portions of matter which once belonged 
to the bodies of the dead ; consequently, it is im- 
possible for all the dead to be raised. This is the 
philosophical objection to the resurrection. It is 
not the abstract question whether God has power 
to raise the dead, but rather this, How can he do a 
thing that is physically impossible. As weakening 
the objection, we are not to understand that all 
parts of the body that dies are raised up. It is an 
admitted truth that " four-fifths of the bulk of 
most organisms is made up of formed matter. 
Only one-fifth is really alive." The Bible says 
plainly enough that " flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God." Our thought, then, is this : 
that amid all the changes of time God preserves the 
chief constituents of every body. Parts of bodies 
in the grave may enter into vegetation, and man 
may eat the food thus formed ; yet God takes care 
of those elements which are needed for the future 
body. A person may eat a thousand pounds of 



THE RESURRECTION. 215 

food in a year, yet at the end of the year be no 
heavier than he was at the beginning. It is easy, 
then, to understand how a living body may have 
particles which once belonged to a dead body, and 
yet all these particles in a short time be gone from 
it. In fact, every few years the body is composed 
of entirely new materials. 

II. Nature of the Resurrection Body. 

Persons assert that the same body which dies is 
the one that shall be raised again. It does not 
seem that these persons can mean what they say. 
The body that is suitable for this earth is certainly 
not suitable for heaven. Here we need food and 
drink, but these will not be needed in the other life. 
If the saints are to arise and meet the Lord in the 
air, and with him ascend to heaven, they must have 
different bodies from what they have at present. 

1. The body will be spiritual. This does not 
mean that it will be a substance like the soul. The 
fact that' it is a " body" shows that it is material. 
The language of Paul is, " There is a natural body, 
and there is a spiritual body." 1 Cor. xv. 44. The 
one is suited to the earthly life, and the other to the 
heavenly. 

2. The future body will be immortal. " This 
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality." 1 Cor. xv. 53. 
The implication here is, that there will be no prin- 
ciple of decay in that wondrous body. 



216 THEOLOGY. 

3. The future body will be characterized by great 
power. Here the body is weak. Its strength has 
to be kept up by nourishment and rest. The in- 
corruptible body will have no sense of weariness — 
simply power in action or power in repose. God 
will sustain it just as he sustains the soul. If the 
saints should be sent off to distant worlds on some 
great mission, the body will not be injured by any 
change. 

4. The body will have a splendid appearance. 
" Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be 
fashioned like unto his glorious body." Phil. iii. 21. 
It will thus be exceedingly attractive and beautiful, 
shining with celestial radiance. It will be the fit 
habitation of a perfected soul, the fit temple of the 
Holy Spirit. 

5. We infer that the glorified body will be simple 
in its construction. Our earthly body is intricate. 
The wonder is how it holds together for so many 
years. When we think of electricity and light, 
what powers they are in nature, and yet how simple, 
we catch the thought that the celestial body may be 
reduced to a few component parts. The more simple 
a machine is, the more likely it will be to keep in 
order. When we think of a body that is capable 
of living in any part of the universe, capable of 
great speed and fitted to endure for ever, we natu- 
rally suppose that both in its material and structure 
it must be simple. 

6. The future body will have the human form. 



THE RESURRECTION. 217 

When Moses and Elias appeared on the mount with 
Christ they were veritable men. Adam and Jesus 
had the human form. A great deal is to be attached 
to the fact that the Son of God assumed our nature. 
He will stand forth as the God-man for ever. The 
divine idea evidently is, that there shall always be 
a race of men who shall always point to the incar- 
nate Redeemer as the one who saved them. Still, 
though the resurrection body will have the human 
form, I can understand how it may be modified at 
many points. Instead of five senses, there may be 
fifty. There are doubtless phases of mind and 
matter of which we know nothing. The future 
body may be so constituted that these phases will 
be discovered. 

Touching the bodies of the wicked the Bible is 
silent. They may be deformed, bearing the marks 
of sin and uneasy with pain. A punitive element 
may thus be connected with them, making the body 
a kind of perdition. Even in this life there are 
bodies that are all unstrung. There is startling 
meaning in the passage, u Fear him which is able 
to destroy both soul and body in hell/ 3 Matt. x. 
28. " In the present state we find that the mind 
has an immense power over the body, and, when 
diseased, often communicates disease to its sympa- 
thizing companion. I believe that in the future 
state the mind will have this power of conforming its 
outward frame to itself, incomparably more than here. 
We must never forget that in that world mind or 



218 THEOLOGY. 

character is to exert an all-powerful sway; and, 
accordingly, it is rational to believe that the cor- 
rupt and deformed mind which wants moral good- 
ness, or a spirit of concord with God and with the 
universe, will create for itself, as its fit dwelling, a 
deformed body, which will also want concord or 
harmony with all things around it." * 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 

The persons to be judged at the final judgment 
are fallen men and fallen angels. It is true that 
judgments strike down men and nations in the 
present life, but these are different from the judg- 
ment of the great day. "All judgments in the 
world's history and by its means are merely par- 
tial, ambiguous and definitively decisive of noth- 
ing." The leading judgments seem to be types 
of the last judgment. The Saviour led the minds 
of men back to the time of Noah, and made them 
face that deluge which overwhelmed the world of 
the ungodly : " For as in the days that were before 
the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying 
and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah 
entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood 
came, and took them all away ; so shall also the 
* Dr. Clianning, Works, vol. iv. p. 164. 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 219 

coming of the Son of man be." Matt. xxiv. 38, 39. 
The apostle Peter calls attention to the same thought, 
using it to meet those scoffers who ask, " Where is 
the promise of his coming ?" " For this they will- 
ingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the 
heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of 
the water and in the water : whereby the world that 
then was, being overflowed with water, perished : 
but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by 
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire 
against the day of judgment and perdition of un- 
godly men." 2 Pet. iii. 5-7. The evils which fell 
upon Jerusalem are made also to symbolize the final 
judgment, for Christ passes from the one scene to 
the other as it were without a break : " Then shall 
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven : and 
then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and 
they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds 
of heaven w T ith power and great glory, xlnd he 
shall send his angels with a great sound of a 
trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect 
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to 
the other." Matt, xxiv. 30, 31. By looking at 
earthly judgments in this way we behold preludes 
of the day of doom, as if heralds were standing 
at these crises of history and were sounding forth 
in clear notes, The final judgment is cer- 
tain. 

The soul of man also points to a future judg- 
ment. Guilt sees retribution ahead, thus harmon- 



220 THEOLOGY. 

izing with Scripture when it speaks of " a certain 
fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indigna- 
tion." "He who /sees the end from the begin- 
ning' has imparted to man a subordinate pres- 
cience of the same comprehensive kind, has 
sketched on his mind an outline of the great 
system of providence, and filled him with presen- 
timents of the principal events which are to attend 
the development of that system. The consequence 
is, that wherever the Bible comes it finds our nature 
preconfigured to many of its truths, waiting for an 
interpreter, and ready to respond to the truth of 
many a prediction as a prophecy or an anticipa- 
tion with which it had long been familiar in 
thought." * 

1. Passages which prove a future judgment. 
" The angels which kept not their first estate, but 
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever- 
lasting chains under darkness unto the judgment 
of the great day " (Jude 6) ; " When the Son of 
man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne 
of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all 
nations : and he shall separate them one from an- 
other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
goats : and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, 
but the goats on the left" (Matt. xxv. 31-34); 
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
God ; and the books were opened : and another 
* Dr. Harris, The Great Teacher, p. 263. 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 221 

book was opened which is the book of life : and 
the dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their 
works." Rev. xx. 12. These passages show that 
the judgment is to be at the end of the world, at 
the time Christ comes with his angels — when the 
human race and the fallen angels are convened 
before him. 

2. Christ is the Judge. We read of " the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ," and that " God hath com- 
mitted all judgment to the Son." It is suitable 
that the divine-human Redeemer should be the 
Judge of fallen angels, inasmuch as they established 
and extended the kingdom of evil upon this earth 
— suitable that he should be the Judge of fallen 
men, inasmuch as they lived under a remedial sys- 
tem. He is now to bring out in a public manner 
how the race acted with reference to a way of sal- 
vation. While man's relation to the divine law 
will be made apparent, his relation to the divine 
remedy will be the most conspicuous. Whether 
each one is penitent or impenitent, believing or un- 
believing, will settle the matter for ever. With the 
Saviour and the sinner face to face, the elements of 
the trial will be made to stand out and the whole 
be greatly simplified. The fact, also, that Christ is 
the Judge shows that he must be divine, for no 
creature, however high, is sufficient for such a 
work. 

3. As it respects the manner of the judgment 

15 



222 THEOLOGY. 

and the time it will occupy, the Bible does not fully 
inform us. That each person will go through a 
lengthened examination is not likely. There w T ill 
be such a vivid consciousness at that time that the 
judgment process can go forward with rapidity. 
That the trial will occupy scores or hundreds of 
years seems out of the question. The electric 
movement of minds on the one hand, and the sweep 
of divinity on the other, will no doubt bring the 
matter to a close in a short time. The future body 
may have such adaptation to the soul that the entire 
history of that soul may appear as in panoramic 
vision. Each man thus left to himself, conscience 
may pronounce sentence with great truthfulness. 
The sense of justice will be so clear that every knee 
shall bow and every tongue confess to the equity 
of Christ's decision. 

4. The question is frequently asked, " If souls 
are judged after death, why is it necessary to have 
a public judgment for all mankind ?" It is not 
easy to answer this question. Still, one or two 
thoughts may be suggested. 

We should try and realize that truth and justice 
are not merely related to individual souls, but that 
they have an extensive bearing on the entire gov- 
ernment of God. There are various orders of in- 
telligent beings in the divine system besides fallen 
men and fallen angels, and the dealings of God 
with reference to the sinful are to affect those who 
have never sinned. Then, too, the facts that the 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 223 

human race have finished their career upon earth ; 
that the redemptive period is ended : that the world 
is to be burned up and a new chapter of providence 
to begin ; that the wicked are to mingle no more 
with the good, but are to work out their mysterious 
destiny by themselves, — these striking realities may 
make a public judgment to be necessary. It should 
be considered also that a man's influence does not stop 
at the moment of death ; it goes from soul to soul 
for generations, even down to the end of time, so that 
a judgment at the end of human history may be the 
only way in which character can receive its rights. 

No doubt persons are perplexed about this sub- 
ject, because they believe that there is no other 
punishment than remorse of conscience. If re- 
morse of conscience is all, then the entire scheme 
of outward jurisprudence is set aside. If it were 
the rule of nations that crime could be punished 
only by remorse, there would be no statute law, no 
court to try men, no officers of justice, no prisons. 
If this is the way to view r the divine government, 
then there is no accountability to God — each man 
is accountable simply to himself; there is no rela- 
tion to an outward law — each man is supreme law ; 
there is no outward punishment to fear — each man 
punishes himself. It is not " Vengeance is mine ; 
I will repay, saith the Lord ;" but, Vengeance is 
mine; I will repay, saith the conscience. Carry 
out this theory, and of course there is no public 
judgment. A positive moral government is swept 



224 THEOLOGY. 

away by it entirely. Even the atonement is made 
impossible by it, because the atonement relates to 
an outward law and penalty — relates to God as 
Judge and Ruler. Thus the necessity of a public 
judgment arises from the fact that man has broken 
an objective law, is exposed to an objective punish- 
ment, and has had a day of grace which was the 
result of an objective atonement. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FUTUKE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED. 

Punishment is not of the nature of discipline. 
That a man to avoid pain will abstain from certain 
evils is a fact ; and yet pain never makes a man 
love holiness and hate sin. The Bible language 
touching divine punishment is very different from 
the language which expresses fatherly discipline. 
Note these passages : " The same shall drink of the 
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out 
without mixture into the cup of his indignation ; 
and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone 
in the presence of the holy angels, and in the pres- 
ence of the Lamb " (Rev. xiv. 10) ; "If I whet 
my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on 
judgment; Twill render vengeance to mine ene- 
mies, and will reward them that hate me " (Dent. 
xxxii. 41); "If any man love not the Lord Jesus 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 225 

Christ, let him he Anathema Maranatha." 1 Cor. 
xvi. 22. The idea of discipline does not appear in 
these verses. See the difference in the following 
passages : " Blessed is the man whom thou ehasten- 
est, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law ; that 
thou may est give him rest from the days of adver- 
sity, until the pit be digged for the wicked " (Ps. 
xciv. 12, 13); "My son, despise not the chasten- 
ing of the Lord ; neither be weary of his correc- 
tion : for whom the Lord loveth he corrected! ; 
even as a father the son in whom he delighteth " 
(Prov. iii. 11, 12); "Our light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor. iv. 
17. Thus Love chastens the righteous, while Jus- 
tice punishes the wicked. 

The true idea of punishment can be gained only 
from the true idea of sin. Sin has the quality of 
demerit, and a man is punished because he is guilty 
—punished whether he becomes better or worse. 
If penal suffering has the power to change malice 
into love, it is a blessing and not a curse. 

Future punishment is not annihilation. Because 
men die, that is no evidence that they are annihi- 
lated. The body only is dead ; the soul lives. That 
is the way that such language has generally been 
understood. The fact that u the Lord is the God 
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob " is proof, according to Christ, that "he 
is not a God of the dead, but of the living." Luke 



226 THEOLOGY. 

xx. 37, 38. These men were dead as to their bodies, 
but they were living as to their souls. Then the 
unconverted are spoken of as "dead," and yet they 
live an intense life. " She that liveth in pleasure 
is dead while she liveth" 1 Tim. v. 6. 

The words " destroy," " devour," " consume," 
are quoted as conveying the idea of annihilation. 
The Bible is a strange book if its language is 
to be understood in that way. We meet with 
such statements as these : " The destruction of the 
poor is their poverty" (Prov. x. 15); "My people 
are destroyed for lack of knowledge " (Hos. iv. 6) ; 
" O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." Hos. xiii. 
9. How plain it is that these classes were not act- 
ually destroyed ! Then we read of those who "bite 
and devour one another" (Gal. v. 15), as if the 
individuals were eaten up, when, as matter of fact, 
they simply manifested a bitter spirit. David says, 
" My bones are consumed, •" " I am consumed by 
the blow of thine hand " (Ps. xxxix. 10), and yet 
lie was living at that very time. Jacob, express- 
ing the hardness of his lot, says : " In the day the 
drought consumed me, and the frost by night." Gen. 
xxxi. 40. Such language has nothing to do with 
utter extinction of being. "A man is broken down 
with sorrow, crushed with calamity, lacerated with 
grief, rent with anguish, melted with emotion, when 
every faculty of mind and body is sound and whole. 
He is prostrated with fear, is irretrievably fallen, is 
ruined — not in body, but in soul — when yet the 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 227 

substance and all the powers of his soul remain 
untouched. He is eaten up by avarice, racked 
with anxiety, devoured by ambition, consumed 
with lust, sunk in vice, drowned in sorrow, burned 
up with fierce and evil passions, and that, too, when 
his being and all its essential functions are so far 
from extinct that they are in a state of the most 
intense activity."* 

Endless punishment is endless suffering. To be 
out of existence is to suffer nothing. When a man 
is hung we do not call that everlasting punishment. 
If a village is burned to ashes, that is not everlast- 
ing fire. The unfaithful servant is represented as 
cut asunder, and yet after that he is in the place 
where " there is weeping and gnashing of teeth." 
The finally impenitent " have no rest day nor 
night;" "the smoke of their torment ascendeth 
up for ever and ever." Much of the language 
which relates to the punishment of the wicked 
and the blessedness of the righteous is figurative, 
and the mistake is in thinking that it is literal. 
Christ says that "everlasting fire" was prepared 
for the devil and his angels, and yet the devil 
and his angels are spirits, and so cannot be affected 
by fire. If to sink into nothingness is the punish- 
ment due to sin, then the greatest sinner and the 
least are punished alike. Annihilation is simply a 
theory. It is an attempt to soften the severity of 
the divine administration. 

*Bartlett, Life and Death Eternal, p. 27. 



228 THEOLOGY. 

Persons say that endless punishment is unrea- 
sonable. No importance can be attached to a 
statement of this kind, because the subject is be- 
yond the reach of the human understanding. There 
is not a single leading doctrine of Christianity but 
has been pronounced unreasonable. The incarna- 
tion of the Son of God, the Christian atonement, 
total depravity, regeneration by the Spirit, justi- 
fication by faith, the resurrection of the dead, have 
all been considered unreasonable. No thoughtful 
person, then, will allow himself to be governed by 
the mere assertions of sinful and shortsighted men. 
Even if I admit that there is something strange 
about endless punishment, yet when I look at other 
phases of creaturely existence I find things that are 
equally perplexing. It is certain that thousands of 
human beings have been destroyed by fire and an- 
gry seas, by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, by 
famine and plague, and yet God did not intervene. 
He heard the cries of suffering people as life wore 
out in agony, but he did not save them. Take the 
collective sin and pain that have devoured mankind 
since the beginning of time, and the picture is fear- 
ful. It is evident that there is severity with God 
as well as goodness. How strange that a Being of 
infinite power, wisdom and love should have selected 
a system with evil in it! Taking my reason as 
guide, I should say that he would have selected a 
system in which all the persons would be holy and 
happy. He has not done, however, what to me 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 229 

seems the best. The same argument, then, which 
affirms that sin must end affirms that sin must not 
begin ; for to the human reason the one seems to 
clash as much with the divine character as the other. 
The argument, therefore, falls to pieces and cannot 
be used. If men will use it, they should see that 
its logical outcome is atheism. The atheist says 
that sin and suffering are evidences that there is 
no God, because if there were such a Being he 
never would permit such evils to afflict the race. 
Our safety, then, is to leave human opinion and 
go to divine revelation. The question being too 
far-reaching for us to settle, we allow God to settle 
it for us. Faith takes the place of reason, inas- 
much as it can do no better, and by the very act 
proves itself to be reasonable. Persons, however, 
insist that the word translated " everlasting " in the 
Bible has a limited meaning. Yes; all limitless 
words have a limited meaning at times, as when I 
say, " The eternal stars," " the everlasting moun- 
tains," "the infinite sea." Scripture falls in with 
this style when it speaks of the land of Canaan as 
an "everlasting possession," with its "everlasting 
statute " and " everlasting priesthood." That the 
word has the sense of age also is true. We read 
of " the cares of this age," " the wisdom of this 
age " and " the end of this age," the word " world " 
being used in our translation instead of "age." If 
now we say that the Greek word rendered " ever- 
lasting " has simply the meaning of age-long, we 



230 THEOLOGY. 

stultify ourselves. Let us apply it to heaven and 
see how it will work : 

" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
life " (John iii. 36) ; shall we say, " Hath age-long 
life " ? " Our light affliction, which is but for a 
moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory " (2 Cor. iv. 17) ; shall we 
say, "Age-long weight of glory " ? " That they 
may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ 
Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. ii. 10); "With 
age-long glory " ? " This is the true God, and 
eternal life" (1 John v. 20) ; "Age-long life"? 
" Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ 
unto eternal life" (Jude 21); "Unto age-long 
life"? Thus, the blessedness of heaven is to con- 
tinue simply for an age. In order to cut short 
the miseries of the lost we must cut short the joys 
of the saved. If the same method is applied to 
God, he is equally limited, and by that very limit- 
ation is annihilated. 

There is no reason why the duration of punish- 
ment should be any shorter than the duration of 
reward. The language is clear enough : " These 
shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the 
righteous into life eternal." Matt. xxv. 46. Here 
the same word is used in both cases. If I must 
limit the pain, I must limit the peace ; so the time 
will come when the righteous shall be lost and the 
wicked shall be saved. Then, too, if the punish- 
ment of ungodly men must end, we must go a step 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 231 

farther, and say, with Origen, that the punishment 
of the fallen angels must end. Having gone as far 
as this, we may as well begin to pray for lost souls 
and these lost spirits that their punitive training 
may speedily fit them for heaven. Scripture lan- 
guage, however, conveys the idea that the destiny 
of the good and the bad is fixed and final. He 
that is unjust is to be unjust still, and he that is 
righteous is to be righteous still. Let sin once 
take hold of a soul, and that soul is doomed. We 
cannot conceive of a time when it will retire from 
the creaturely spirit. Simply give sin a place in 
the universe, and from its nature it is eternal. No 
one can point to a single fallen being who has re- 
stored himself to holiness. Length of time, instead 
of weakening sin, only strengthens it. The ante- 
diluvians, whose age was almost a thousand years, 
became worse and worse. It is an act of mercy 
that God has shortened the life of man. 

The drift of Bible-teaching is in the direction of 
endless punishment. As if to arrest our attention 
and impress us most solemnly, the compassionate 
Redeemer is the one who speaks more frequently 
of the woes of hereafter than any other person in 
Scripture. Theodore Parker was sufficiently truth- 
ful to say : " I believe that Jesus Christ taught 
eternal torments/' He was daring enough, how- 
ever, to add, " I do not accept it on his authority/' 
Dr. Davidson speaks in the same way. " If a spe- 
cific sense be attached to words/' he remarks, 



232 THEOLOGY. 

" never-ending misery is enunciated. On the pre- 
sumption that one doctrine is taught, it is the eter- 
nity of hell-torments. Bad exegesis may attempt 
to banish it from the New-Testament Scriptures, 
but it is still there ; and expositors who wish to get 
rid of it, as Canon Farrar does, injure the cause 
they have in view by misinterpretation." Having 
admitted that the Bible teaches the doctrine, he 
now lets us know that he does not believe it. " If 
a provision be not made in revelation," he says, 
" for a change of moral character after death, it is 
made in reason. Philosophical considerations must 
not be set aside even by Scripture." 

It is a significant fact that the Church of God, 
with a few exceptions, has held to the belief that 
the wicked shall be punished for ever. It is no 
less significant that all skeptics deny the eternity 
of punishment. Is it likely that men who reject 
the Bible are right in their denial of endless pun- 
ishment, while men who receive the Bible are 
wrong in their believing it ? Certainly, the prob- 
abilities are that the truth lies with the collective 
body of Christians, and not with the collective body 
of skeptics. 

When Noah proclaimed that God would destroy 
the world of the ungodly with a flood, no doubt 
they affirmed that such a thing would be unreason- 
able and unjust, and that it never could take place. 
They were all swept away, however, without mercy. 
So will it be with the finally impenitent in the fu- 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 233 

hire state. That sin is against an infinite Being 
shows that punishment must be exceedingly great. 
If God had to become man, and as man suffer and 
die in order to make atonement, sin must be a 
tremendous evil. A divine atonement and endless 
punishment stand or fall together. If we strike 
down the one, we strike down the other. It is the 
nature of one to illustrate and measure the other. 

There is even a sin mentioned in Scripture which 
places those who commit it beyond all hope. " He 
that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath 
never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damna- 
tion." Mark iii. 29. Or rendered thus : " Hath 
never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." 
He is subject to eternal sin, and so is lost for ever. 
It is said of Judas, " It had been good for that 
man if he had not been born." Matt. xxvi. 24. If 
the betrayer of Christ would ultimately be saved, 
it would not seem proper to say of him that it 
would have been better if he had not been born. 
An eternity of joy would far outweigh a few years 
of pain. The only fair inference, then, is that Ju- 
das is hopelessly lost. 

There are persons who believe in the supremacy 
of free wdll — believe that they can resist any influ- 
ence which God might bring to bear upon them 
with reference to their salvation. Very well. Let 
this be as these persons say. They turn not from 
evil ; they will not accept of mercy : they are de- 
termined to have their own way. How can it be 



234 THEOLOGY. 

wrong to leave such individuals to themselves? 
What else can be done with them, since their will 
is stronger than divine grace ? It is not in point 
to speak of God as unjust in punishing them. 
They take the matter in their own hand and accept 
the consequences of their manner of life. If they 
were really injured by outside pressure, they might 
be objects of pity, but since they freely prefer their 
own course, that is the end of it. Their character 
never changes, because they want no change. Their 
punishment is endless, because by a fixed choice 
they have adopted sin with all its results. If we 
tell them that separation from God is one part of 
eternal punishment, they answer that they have 
no desire to be near to God. If we say that they 
will be banished from the society of the good in 
heaven, they reply that that to them is no evil. 
They prefer to mingle with their own kind, grati- 
fying their own tastes as they think proper. Thus, 
accepting their situation with all its evils, they are 
left and lost. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FUTUKE EEWAEDS OF THE EIGHTEOUS. 

" Heaven " is a notable word. It points to a 
holy place, and not merely to a holy state. The 
place is viewed as above us. It contains all excel- 



FUTURE REWARDS. 235 

lencies, as if it were the ideal realm of the uni- 
verse. The angels make their home there. Christ 
came from heaven to this earth to work out salva- 
tion for lost men, and when the work was finished 
he went back again to heaven. To show the high 
dignity of the place, God is spoken of as " the 
Lord of heaven," " the King of heaven " and as 
"our Father which art in heaven." All interests 
appear to centre there, as if heaven were the capi- 
tal of the universe, creatures going to it and com- 
ing from it on some exalted mission. The divine 
glories are evidently manifested there with such 
splendor and fullness as are found nowhere else, 
and the worship which ascends there to God is re- 
markable for its purity, intelligence and compass. 
It is to this world of light that the saints go 
to obtain the reward promised them. There is 
"an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and 
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you " 
(1 Pet. i. 4) ; " Rejoice, and be exceeding glad : for 
great is your reward in heaven." Matt. v. 12. This 
thought of heaven has grasped all Christian souls. 
It gives color to their thinking, forms their stay in 
hours of darkness, presses them forward in times 
of depression. Heaven partakes of the final and 
ultimate. The mind rests in it as if it were the 
symbol of God, its beauty being fairer than all 
fair things, and the day which marks it off being 
nothing less than the day of the Lord. Even the 
wicked dream of it, sighing in exile because they 



236 THEOLOGY. 

have lost it; the thought of it sharpening their 
pain, the glory of it deepening their night. 

Heaven has about it an organic idea. The peo- 
ple who live there form a society. They have a 
single corporate life. Hence we see heaven as a 
"city," a "country," a "kingdom." "We feel 
that we are taken up into a scheme of things 
which is in conflict with the present, and which 
cannot realize itself here. Therefore our final 
teaching is by prophecy, which shows us, not how 
we are personally saved and victorious, but how 
the battle goes upon the whole, and which issues 
in the appearance of a holy city in which redemp- 
tion reaches its end and the Redeemer finds his 
joy ; in which human tendencies are realized and 
divine promises fulfilled ; in which the ideal has 
become the actual, and man is perfected in the 
presence and glory of God."* 

There is a principle which belongs to the very 
nature of moral government — namely, this : that 
"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap." Gal. vi. 7. Good and evil work out for 
ever by a law of their own ; and by that law 
the one ends in joy and the other in misery. This 
is simply a fact seen in thousands of instances, and 
can admit of no dispute. The point is to realize 
it, and to feel that this constitution of nature can- 
not be changed. The moral system will work out 
inexorably, irrespective of all wishes to the con- 
* Bernard, Progress of Doci. in New Test, p. 225. 



FUTURE REWARDS. 237 

trary. Sin never will succeed; holiness never 
will fail. " Say ye to the righteous, that it shall 
be well with him : for they shall eat the fruit of 
their doings. Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be 
ill with him : for the reward of his hands shall 
be given him." Isa. iii. 10, 11. 

1. The rewards of heaven are a matter of grace. 
"The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." Rom. vi. 23. That the holiest 
men are imperfect shows that they cannot merit 
heaven. The law demands perfect obedience every 
moment. Even if one should reach perfection, he 
cannot make up for the sins of the past. There 
are no works of supererogation, and repentance 
cannot satisfy the law. He who sheds blood is 
put to death, whether he repents or not. If a 
man turns from sin, it is the grace of God which 
enables him to turn. If he believes in Christ, and 
by that means is saved, the merit is not in the faith, 
but in the Saviour. " By grace are ye saved 
through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is 
the gift of God." Eph. ii. 8. Auctions may be 
performed which have in them an element of 
holiness, yet without the Divine Spirit they never 
would be performed ; so that, taking the Christian 
life in its totality, there is no such thing as salva- 
tion by works. Even the reward of sinless beings 
is partly a gift. The holiness with them is not 
absolute. They were created with a pure disposi- 
tion and with a will that was inclined to obedience, 

16 



238 THEOLOGY. 

They had the Spirit to influence them, and thus 
they are debtors to God. "AH finite holiness," 
says Professor Shedd, " be it in man or angel, is 
only relatively meritorious, because it is the result of 
God's working in man or angel to will and to do." * 
Even in regard to the natural happiness of 
creatures, God might have made it less without 
doing them any injury. All the happiness, be- 
yond a small degree, is to be viewed as the result 
of sovereignty, and not as the result of justice. 
Although the Divine Being might not consistently 
form an organism for the express purpose of pro- 
ducing pain, he might form an organism that would 
average ten degrees of pleasure instead of one hun- 
dred. Our delight in form and color, in variety 
and novelty, might be greatly lessened if God had 
so desired ; and even the gift of music, which adds 
so much to the enjoyment of mankind, might have 
been withheld altogether without any injustice. Sin 
is man's own. The will is self-moved when it goes 
into evil, and so the punishment is meted out ac- 
cording to strict justice. Whatever the degree of 
wickedness, the punishment will be proportioned 
to that degree. " That servant, which knew his 
lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did 
according to his will, shall be beaten w T ith many 
stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit 
things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few 
stripes." Luke xii. 47, 48. All of the finally and 
* Hist, of Christian Doct., vol. ii. p. 54. 



FUTURE REWARDS. 239 

incorrigibly impenitent will suffer for ever, but 
the suffering will vary as to intensity. 

2. Though heavenly rewards are of grace, they 
are graded according to faithfulness. The man 
whose pound gained five pounds was placed over 
five cities, while the other was placed over ten 
cities because his pound had increased to ten. The 
penitent robber will not have a reward equal to that 
of the apostle Paul. The Bible speaks of those who 
are " saved so as by fire," of those who have an 
"abundant entrance" into the heavenly kingdom, 
and of those who will " shine as the stars for ever and 
ever." Every converted man will reach heaven, 
and every vessel will be filled at the fountain of 
life; but the vessels will differ in size and value. 
There will thus be different ranks of glorified 
men. Some will teach, and some will be taught. 
There will be kingly minds who will travel far 
and long, attending to great interests in the sys- 
tem of God, while others will work in lower 
spheres with faithfulness and love. Each saved 
immortal will be holy and happy, but the volume 
of holiness and happiness will differ. 

3. Though the rewards of heaven are of grace, 
and are graded according to faithfulness, they are 
all greatly beyond 'proportion to man's doings. It 
is not that two acts of love are followed by two 
blessings of the same weight and worth as the 
love. The blessings are manifold, and quite high 
as to their wealth. The servant that was faithful 



210 THEOLOGY. 

over a few things is made ruler over many things. 
No doubt God lias a rule in the bestowment of 
rewards. But just what that rule is we cannot 
say. We can only affirm that the divine rewards 
are exceedingly munificent. When we think of 
the deficiencies of the noblest men, and then see 
the eternal weight of glory that shall come to 
them, we are surprised. 

The beatific vision of God will be the culminat- 
ing reward of the saved. According to the text- 
ure of each soul, and the amount of the divine 
which is in it, so will be its nearness to the Deity. 
" God will be so known by us/' says Augustine, 
"and shall be so much before us, that we shall see 
him by the spirit in ourselves, in one another, in 
himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in 
every created thing which shall then exist; and 
also by the body we shall see him in every body 
which the keen vision of the eye of the spiritual 
body shall reach/' . . . "How great shall be that 
felicity which shall be tainted with no evil, which 
shall lack no good, and which shall afford leisure 
for the praises of God, who shall be all in all ! 
For I know not what other employment there 
can be where no lassitude shall slacken activity 
nor any want stimulate to labor." . . . "God shall 
be the end of our desires, who shall be seen with- 
out end, loved without cloy, praised without weari- 
ness."* When we try to imagine how the soul 
* City of God, vol. ii. pp. 540, 54L 



FUTURE REWARDS. 241 

will increase in knowledge, goodness and blessed- 
ness for ever, we are simply confused by excellen- 
cies that are limitless. 

Wonderful life ! May we reach it at the end 
of oar day ! We shall think of it during the 
quick beat of the moments, hastening our steps 
that we may come to it in peace. We long for 
the country that we have never seen. As the 
sun shines across some great river at the evening 
time, forming a beautiful bridge of light from 
shore to shore, as if it were the royal path where 
angels walk at the close of the day, so the sun 
of eternity sends its radiance across the river of 
death, forming a golden highway for souls to 
pass over to their home in heaven. When we 
shall reach the Land of God we shall know no 
evil thing. With easy step we shall travel along 
our way. Seraphs and saints shall be our friends. 
We shall ascend the heights of the Lord. God 
shall be to us all in all. Glorious Being, help us! 
We wander as yet through clouds; shine upon 
us ! When the morning comes we shall be well. 
Till then we shall trust and toil. Our life shall 
be a prayer until home is reached. We shall 
enter the city-gates with sons:s and iov. 

" Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, 
be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb for ever and ever!" 



INDEX. 



Ability, gracious. 144. 

Ability, natural. 84. 

Ackerniann, Dr., 101. 

Addison. Joseph, on immortality 
of the soul. 92. 

Advent. Second. 207. 
:ieism. 15. 

Anderson. Christopher, on fam- 
ily prayer. 174. 

Angels, creation of. 46: nature 
:. 46. 

Angels, fallen. 4 Q . 

Annihilation. 192. 225. 

Argyll, duke of, on evolution. 59. 

Assurance of faith and hope. 161. 

Atonement, necessity of. on part 
of man. 115: on part of God. 
116 : atonement vicarious. 117 ; 
Christ a redemptive person. 
117: the atonement a satia- 
tion to justice. US: infi- 
nite value of. 119 : sufferings 
of Christ penal. 119 : extent 
of atonement. 121 : interces- 
sion of Christ, 122. 

Augustine on original sin,, 71 : on 
beatific vision. 240. 

Bacon, Lord, on atheism, 2 

Christ as Mediator, 125. 
Baptismal regeneration, 149. 
Bartlett. Samuel, on the theory 

of annihilation. 227. 
Beet. Joseph, 142. 
Bernard. Joseph., 236. 

Caijjerwood, Dr.. on miracles, 

52. 



Calvin. John, on original sin. 71 ; 
on Christ as Mediator, 125, 

Canons of Dort. 186. 

Channing. Dr.. 217. 

Charnoek. Stephen, on the atone- 
ment. IIS. 

Christ, divinity of, 105: no 
change in divine nature by the 
incarnation. 110; how Christ 
could be tempted, 112: sec- 
ond coming of. 2^6, 

Cobb, Rev. TVilliam. on mean- 
ing of ruah and nepTiesh, 194. 

Common grace, 133. 

Comte. 128. 

Conscience. S3. 

Cowles. Dr.. 195. 

Covenants, 113. 

Creation, days of. 42 : double 
work on third and sixth davs, 
45. 

Creeds of Christendom. 1S6. 196. 
rorth on the First G-od. 13: 
on the spirit body, 213. 

Daha, Prof., on the creation, 

46. 

Darwin. 59. 

Davidson. Dr.. 231. 

Dawson. Dr.. 59. 66. 

Decrees of God, 36: decree and 
foreknowledge, 37: decree of 
God and sin, 40 ; mystery of 
the divine decrees, 147. 

Delitzsch. Franz. 103. 

Depravitv. total. 80. 

Dorner. Dr.. 32. 105. 125. 

Duff, Alexander. 145. 

243 



244 



INDEX. 



Earth, the, antiquity of, 43. 

Edwards, President, 168. 

Efficacious grace, 152. 

Election,all men not treated alike, 
140 ; all men not good, 141 ; 
meaning of election, 142 ; idea 
of sufficient grace examined, 
144 ; as man is totally de- 
praved, God must take the 
first step, 145; if grace not 
stronger than depravity, all 
will be lost, 145. 

Evil, origin and mystery of, 40, 
74. 

Faith and reason, 155. 

Faith, saving, what it is not, 156 ; 
what it is, 157 ; results of sav- 
ing faith, 158. 

Fall of man, how it took place 
and in what it consists, 69 ; 
relation of Adam to the race, 
70 ; meaning of original sin, 
71 : evidence of original sin, 
72 ; theories of the origin of 
sin, 73. 

Flint implements, 63. 

Foreknowledge of God, 37. 

Foster, John, on prayer, 169. 

Free agency of man, what it im- 
plies, 83 ; what it is, 86; rela- 
tion of motives to the will, 87 ; 
cause of volition, 88; power 
of contrary choice, 89. 

Future rewards, heaven the place 
of, 235 ; are of grace, 237 ; yet 
proportioned to faithfulness, 
239 ; the rewards exceeding- 
ly great, 239. 

Geology, 43, 59. 

God, the universe a proof of his 
existence, 14; design points to 
a Designer, 16; human mind 
points to the divine mind, 18. 

God, attributes of: eternity, 21 : 
immutability, 22 ; omnipres- 
ence, 23 ; omnipotence, 23 ; 
omniscience, 24 ; wisdom, 25 ; 
self-determining power, 25; 
holiness, 26 ; justice, 27 ; love, 
27 ; truth, 28. 



God, ultimate end of, 35. 
Golden Age, 204. 

Harris, Dr., 220. 

Heaven, the good there after 
death, 194; the place of re- 
ward, 234. 

Herodotus, 114. 

Hodge, Archibald, 39. 

Hodge, Charles, 34, 96, 154. 

Holy Spirit, his personality, 132 ; 
divinity, 133; the procession 
of, 134; how his work is dis- 
tinguished from that of the 
other divine Persons, 135; his 
relation to the man Christ Je- 
sus, 136; inspires the Script- 
ure-writers, 137; bestows un- 
usual gifts, 138 ; applies the 
divine remedy to souls, 139. 

Holy Spirit, sin against the, 79. 

Howe, John, on sin as idolatry, 
78. 

Humanity, true idea of, from the 
Bible, 202. 

Image of God, in what it con- 
sists, 67. 

Immortality of the soul, proofs 
of, from reason, 90 ; from 
Scripture, 94. 

Incarnation of Christ, 104. 

Infants saved, 71, 144. 

Intercession of Christ, 122. 

Irish Articles of Religion, 196. 

Judgment, last, 218. 

Justification by faith, 158. 

Lake-dwellings, 64. 
Luthardt, Dr., 101. 

Man, origin and antiquity of, 
58, 62. 

Man, innocence and fall of, 67, 
70. 

Martensen, Dr., 93, 199. 

Mediatorship of Christ, before 
redemption, 124; during re- 
demption, 126 ; after redemp- 
tion, 129. 

Millennium, 198. 

Miller, Rev. William, 199. 



INDEX. 



24r 



Miracles, 52. 

Moral inability, 85. 

Motive, what it is, 87. 

Mulford, Dr., on the personality 
of God, 18. 

Miiller, Julius, on the unpardon- 
able sin, 80. 

Miiller, Max, on the idea of hu- 
manity, 202. 

Natural ability, 84. 

Neander, 125. 

Need of redemption, as seen in 
the consciousness of loss, 98 ; 
unrest, 99; ideals not realized, 
100; despair, 101. 

Nitzsch, Dr., on Christ as Me- 
diator, 125. 

Owen, John, on the work of the 
Spirit, 136; on regeneration, 
153. 

Parker, Dr., 140. 

Parker, Theodore, 231. 

Perseverance of saints, 184. 

Plan of God, 36. 

Pope, Dr., 75, 153, 190. 

Pottery in mud of River Nile, 
62. 

Power of contrary choice, 89. 

Prayer, does not violate natu- 
ral law, 168; nature of, 170; 
parts of prayer, 171 ; kinds 
of prayer, 173; prevailing 
prayer, 175. 

Pressense, Edmond de, 104. 

Procter, Richard, 17. 

Providence of God, definition of, 
50 : theory that God acts di- 
rectly, 51; theory that God 
acts through second causes, 
51 ; universal and special prov- 
idence, 52 ; miracles, 53 ; prov- 
idence by means of the for- 
tuities of life, 54; providence 
does not destroy freedom, 55 ; 
God gives power, but does not 
prompt man to use that power 
to sin, 56 ; providential judg- 
ments, 56. 

Punishment, future, not disci- 



pline, 224: not annihilation, 
225; duration of punishment 
cannot be settled by reason, 
228 ; limited meaning of ever- 
lasting, not true when applied 
to heaven, 230; endless pun- 
ishment the doctrine of the 
Church in all ages, 232 ; what 
shall be done with those who 
will not be saved ? 233. 

Raymond, Prof., on regenera- 
tion, 153. 

Regeneration, what it is not, 
149 ; what it is, 151 ; Author 
of, 153. 

Repentance, what it is not, 163 ; 
what it is, 164; reasons for, 
166; evidence of, 167. 

Resurrection, proofs of, 212 ; ob- 
jections to, 213; the resurrec- 
tion body, 215; bodies of the 
wicked, 217. 

Sanctification, meaning of, 176 ; 
carried forward by the Spirit, 
177; means of sanctification, 

178 : reached through conflict, 

179 ; also by direct efforts, 181 ; 
is sinlessness attainable in this 
life ? 182. 

Schaff, Dr., 1S6, 196. 

Second causes, God works 
through them in nature, 51, 
126; in sanctification, 178. 

Second coming of Christ, time 
of, not known, 207; present 
decline in religion not certain 
evidence that the time is near, 
208; redemption ends when 
Christ comes, 208 ; dead are 
raised, 209; men judged, 209 : 
earth burned up, 209 ; second 
advent a kind of universal 
motive, 210. 

Shedd. Dr., 119, 203, 238. 

Sin, a state of mind, 75; nature 
of sin, 77; entire sinfulness, 
80. 

Smith, Prof. H. B., on value of 
theology, 5 : on creation, 15; 
on original sin, 70 ; on Christ 



246 



INDEX. 



as the centre, 128 ; on election, 
145. 

Son of man, significance of the 
phrase, 107. 

Soul, after death, does not sleep, 
191; is not material, and so 
not out of existence after death, 
192 ,• soul of the righteous in 
blessedness, 194; of the wicked 
in misery, 196; no probation 
after death, 197. 

Species, the higher, not evolved 
from lower, 59, 66. 

Spencer, Herbert, 16. 

Strauss, Dr., 111. 

Taylor, Isaac, on the fortuities 
of life, 54. 



Triune God, not an impossible 
thing, 29 ; scriptural proof 
of the Trinity, 31; explana- 
tion of the doctrine, 33; the 
doctrine practical, 35. 

Tulloch, Dr., on order as prov- 
ing mind, 16. 

Van Oosterzee, Dr., on the sec- 
ond advent, 211. 
Vogt, C, 193. 

Westminster Confession, 143, 

196. 
Wiggers, Dr., 71. 
Will, is it self- determining ? 88. 
Witness of the Spirit, 160. 



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